Eddie McGrady: Does the Secretary of State agree that loyalist paramilitary activity is still a serious threat to our society and that the refusal of the people involved to call a ceasefire, to disarm and to disband requires immediate and full security and policing attention? What additional actions and pressures does he intend to employ, rather than the continuation of what appears to be a current and laissez-faire attitude towards such organisations?

Shaun Woodward: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that is more than familiar to and shared by many people. I would go as far as to say that all hon. Members and all people want those paramilitary vestiges of the past to be expunged as soon as possible. The critical issue here, though, is cross-community confidence. It is worth reminding him, and indeed all hon. Members, of the IMC's firm view that PIRA is committed to the political path and of the fact that the IMC has no evidence to believe that PIRA will be diverted from that path. Therefore, the critical issue that has to be addressed is one of confidence.
	I believe that there is growing confidence in Northern Ireland that we are now able to move to the second stage of devolution and to devolve policing and criminal justice, and that the sooner that is done, the sooner we will expunge those vestiges of the past, in every form.

Shaun Woodward: I believe that the initiatives, which include the conflict transformation initiative, have been helpful in enabling communities to get themselves out of the grip of paramilitary activity. It is important to distinguish between the individuals who are involved in paramilitary-style behaviour and the communities that are in the grip of that behaviour. The money that was found for the conflict transformation initiative was money to help the communities to get out of the grip of such behaviour.
	As far as we are able to assess, considerable progress is being made by communities to get out of that grip, but there remains a duty on us all to help in any way we can any community that wants to leave behind the past and those vestiges of the past in relation to paramilitary activity, enabling it to do so and to move into the shared future, and a prosperous, peaceful future too.

Shaun Woodward: By and large, those are now matters for the devolved Assembly, the Executive and the Finance Minister and his colleagues in Northern Ireland. However, I say to the hon. Lady that if we look at the economy in Northern Ireland today, we see that unemployment has halved, the growth rate is the second highest in the UK, exports have increased and Belfast today attracts more inward investment than any city in the UK other than London. The Assembly and the Executive are taking enormous strides to attract inward investment, and the Government's policy is to do all we can to assist them in future.

Prisoner Provision

Paul Goggins: I agree, and I am pleased that we are now giving some real focus to this particular issue. The figure is 30 per cent. of prison admissions last year, but the hon. Gentleman is quite right that this is a terrible waste of resources. It costs £1 million or more each year just to administer the system of sending fine defaulters to prison. We will bring forward further proposals to deal with the problem—for example, attachment of benefit orders and attachment of earning orders—to make sure that people pay the fines without the expensive waste of putting them in prison for just a few days.

Shaun Woodward: I understand the excitement that the hon. Gentleman wishes to generate on this issue, but a little less heat and little more light would be appropriate. First of all, it is essential to separate the cost of this inquiry from its value. The decision to hold the inquiry was absolutely critical to engaging Northern Ireland on the peaceful, prosperous and stable path on which it now lies. Costs are, of course, an issue, which is why the Government introduced the Inquiries Act 2005 and why new inquiries are being held under that Act. The Saville inquiry was established under terms before the Inquiry Act, and although we have done what we can to try and control costs, those costs are a matter for the inquiry rather than for the Government, as the hon. Gentleman well knows. He should be careful not to twist the facts and distort the issue, which runs the risk of trampling on the sensitivities of the families who lost their loved ones.

Patrick Cormack: Does the Secretary of State agree that in spite of those welcome developments and the increasing co-operation between the Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Garda Siochana, there are still real worries in south Armagh? Is he not disturbed, as I am, that no one has yet been arrested for the murder of Paul Quinn?

Nicholas Clegg: I wish to add my own expressions of condolence and sympathy to the family and friends of Corporal Damian Lawrence.
	This being the Prime Minister's birthday, I welcome his belated acceptance of the advice from the Liberal Democrats that the temporary nationalisation of Northern Rock was the only workable option available to him, although he now seems to be jeopardising the interests of British taxpayers all over again by hiving off the bank's best assets elsewhere. Will he now admit that if he had acted sooner, he could have saved the taxpayer the tens of millions of pounds frittered away on bidders' costs and prevented the untold damage done to this country's reputation as a world financial centre?

Gordon Brown: I stress to the right hon. Gentleman that we were right to look at all possible options for Northern Rock before we took the decision that we did. If we had not done that, we would be subject to even greater legal action for not looking rigorously at all options. As far as energy is concerned, let me say that we are looking at the advice of the director general of Ofgem on that very matter. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that it was the Labour Government who introduced the winter allowance, which is helping thousands of elderly people. It was the Labour Government who raised it to £300 for the over 80s. It was the Liberal party and the Conservative party who opposed the winter allowance.

Gordon Brown: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I applaud the way that she has taken up the issue of youth employment in her constituency and in the country. Youth unemployment has fallen by more than 60 per cent. over the last 10 years, but there is more to do. That is why the Welfare Secretary is today putting forward proposals to deal with people who are long-term unemployed. That is also why we are increasing the number of apprenticeships in our economy, and that is also why, for those who are not able to get apprenticeships because they do not have the qualifications, we are going to introduce pre-apprenticeship courses so that young people without qualifications who have left school with nothing can get on apprenticeship courses. Those are the practical ways of making the new deal relevant to the new situation. The worst thing to do would be, as the Opposition want to do, to abolish the new deal.

Philip Hollobone: Baby Jessica Randall was just 54 days old when she was murdered by her now imprisoned father, after having been repeatedly beaten and sexually assaulted. In her short life, she spent 21 days in Kettering general hospital and was seen by 30 separate health care workers. Is it right that in cases like Jessica's, senior and often extremely well paid directors in our health care services and social services should collectively slope their shoulders and refuse to accept individual responsibility for their failure to protect such vulnerable children?

Jacqui Smith: With permission, Mr. Speaker—

Jacqui Smith: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should like to make a statement on immigration and the path to British citizenship. Today I laid copies of the earned citizenship Green Paper in the Library of the House.
	Britain is a tolerant and fair-minded country. The British public know that carefully managed migration brings great benefits for the UK—economic, social and cultural. However, I also recognise and understand concerns about the impact of migration on local public services. At a time of change, we have responded to the need to control migration to the benefit of Britain, and to protect our borders.
	We have made substantial progress in recent years, and we are seeing the results: record numbers of foreign national prisoners were deported last year; fingerprint checks are now in place for all visas for those travelling to Britain; and asylum applications are now being processed more quickly than ever before. This year, we are delivering further radical changes to the UK's immigration system.
	First, we are ensuring that those who come to Britain do so in Britain's interests. The Australian-style points-based system, which goes live at the end of this month, will allow only those whom we need to come to work and study. Secondly, we have strengthened how we police the system and protect our borders. We will soon have systems in place to count people in and out of the country. From 1 April, the UK Border Agency will bring together the work of the Border and Immigration Agency, UKvisas and Customs at British ports of entry. Later this year, we will begin to introduce compulsory identity cards for foreign nationals who wish to stay in the UK, making it clear whether they are allowed to work and how long they can stay.
	Building on those measures, today's Green Paper sets out our plans for the third phase of immigration reform—ensuring that the path to British citizenship reinforces our shared values. Today we are setting out a new deal for citizenship, in which the rights and benefits of British citizenship are matched by the responsibilities and contributions that we expect of newcomers to the UK.
	Our proposals are based on a UK-wide programme of listening events that we have conducted over the past five months with the British public, and in framing our proposals, we have listened to their views. They were clear about what we should expect of newcomers who choose to come to the UK and start on the path to citizenship—that they should speak English; that they should work hard and pay tax; that they should obey the law; and that they should get involved in and contribute to community life.
	British people want the system to be fair and transparent, and I am clear that progress to citizenship should be earned. The Green Paper proposes that all migrants coming to the UK will be admitted as temporary residents. A limited number of categories—highly skilled and skilled workers, those joining family and those granted our protection—will then be able to apply to become probationary citizens for a time-limited period. Probationary citizenship is a new and crucial stage in our immigration system, and it will determine whether a migrant can progress to full citizenship or permanent residence.
	The Green Paper sets out clear expectations of migrants as they move through the stages of that journey. We will expect the vast majority of highly skilled and skilled workers entering under the points-based system to speak English, and we are consulting on whether spouses entering on marriage visas should be able to speak some English before arrival. In order to become a probationary citizen, we will expect everyone to demonstrate English and knowledge of life in the UK.
	Refugees who legitimately require our protection will continue to receive their current entitlements. We will continue to expect temporary residents to support themselves without general access to benefits. We now propose to defer full access to benefits and services until migrants have successfully completed the probationary citizenship phase, so that they are expected to contribute economically and support themselves and their dependants until such time as they become British citizens or permanent residents. It is at that point that they will have full access to our benefits and services.
	We expect people coming to this country to obey our laws. As well as deporting record numbers of foreign national prisoners, we will refuse applications to stay or progress from anyone given a prison sentence, so that they will be denied access to British citizenship and will lose their right to stay. There should also be consequences for those given non-custodial sentences. We propose, therefore, that minor offences should slow down progress to the full benefits of citizenship. Such offenders should need to demonstrate compliance with our laws over an extended period to earn the right to progress in the journey to citizenship. I believe that criminality should halt, or slow down, progress on the path to British citizenship, but also that we should reward those who play a more active role in the community. We will therefore enable people to move more quickly through the system where they have made a positive contribution to British life by, for example, volunteering with a charity.
	I am today proposing a fund to help local service providers to deal with the impacts on our local communities of rapid changes in population. Money for the fund will come from charging migrants an additional amount on immigration application fees.
	At a European level, we are making a concerted effort with member states to deal, for example, with criminal activity by European economic area nationals. We deported 500 EEA nationals last year, and we will continue that robust approach by identifying ways to return them more easily to their countries of origin. I can today announce that we are setting up two new units to work across Departments on how in turn we work with European Union partners to tighten our provisions on criminality and benefits. We will also work closely with employers to ensure that workers can speak the necessary standard of English.
	Finally, the Green Paper sets out proposals to simplify and consolidate immigration law, allowing us to increase the efficiency of decision making, strengthen public confidence in the system, and minimise the likelihood of delays and inconsistency in decision making.
	Our proposals will make it easier for migrants, decision makers and the public as a whole to understand the rules and have confidence in their operation. This is a comprehensive package of measures to strengthen our immigration system and reinforce our shared values. It will deliver a clear journey to British citizenship that balances rights and benefits with responsibilities and contributions. I commend the statement to the House.

Jacqui Smith: Let me respond to some of the right hon. Gentleman's specific points. First, he is right that there is an important link between the proposals and the work of Lord Goldsmith, on which we expect a report in the next month or so. His work, like the work that I have outlined, clearly embeds the importance and expectations of British citizenship, to which, as the right hon. Gentleman says, many people around the world aspire. We are introducing the proposals to ensure that our immigration system reflects the shared values that are part of British citizenship.
	The right hon. Gentleman made a point about the legal simplification that we propose. It builds on a series of Acts since 1971. It is right to consider now the way in which we can bring them together in one simple set of principles and law, which will make life easier for those who come to this country and those who make decisions about them. It is a bit rich of the right hon. Gentleman, whose Government were responsible for ending the practice of counting people in and out of this country, to start criticising us, when we are reintroducing the ability to count people in and out. If he is genuinely worried about the identity of people who come to this country, perhaps he will change his position and support our policy of identity cards for foreign residents.
	I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will examine in more detail our proposals for probationary citizenship. However, I can confirm to him that it is a period prior to full British citizenship, so some of his legal points are wrong. That period of time is necessary to earn the right to British citizenship or permanent residence. He made a point about timing, but probationary citizenship lasts for a minimum of one year. It will build on a period of temporary residence of five years for economic migrants or two years for families and dependants. Even the one year depends on those who take the path to citizenship demonstrating an active contribution to British life. Without that contribution, the period of probationary citizenship would be three years. The minimum is therefore six years for people to demonstrate their commitment to the UK and earn the benefits of full British citizenship.
	The right hon. Gentleman commented on the fund that I propose. The Government have already, through £900 million-worth of extra funding for local government next year alone, £50 million of funding for community cohesion and specific education funding for the impact of changes in numbers on school rolls, made an important contribution— [Interruption.]

Jacqui Smith: The Government have made an important contribution to ensuring that our communities can function effectively. I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman, like the chair of the Local Government Association, welcomed our proposals for new and innovative ways in which to tackle the transitional impact of migration on communities. The tens of millions of pounds that we believe that we can raise every year will make an important contribution.
	The right hon. Gentleman fell back on a rather a vague assertion that we need to place an arbitrary limit on immigration. He did not appear to be clear about the details of that limit and how it would work, but the most recent estimate by the hon. Member for Ashford (Damian Green) is that it could only ever cover one out of five newcomers. Instead of thrashing around for a soundbite approach to limiting migration, it would be better if the right hon. Gentleman engaged seriously in developing the points-based system, which, for the first time, will enable us to be clear that those who come to the UK do so in a way that benefits the country, and responded seriously to our proposals today. Does he believe that the deal for citizenship that we are setting out is the right one and the fair one for Britain, as people throughout the country have told us they believe? Will he support us in our reform? Will he for once engage seriously in looking at the future of our immigration system, as we are today?

Jacqui Smith: My right hon. Friend will know, as I have spelt out, that the proposals are built on our contact with communities around the country and our listening to them. Communities and people in the UK have already told us clearly that they can see the massive benefits of migration to this country. They want people to come to this country, they want them to reach the stage of receiving the full benefits of citizenship and they believe that the process for doing that should be fair and should reflect the sorts of expectations that we would place on ourselves, which are precisely the reasons people want to come to the UK and gain British citizenship in the first place. The reason we have designed the system as we have is to build on those issues and concerns.
	In respect of the details of the fund, what we are proposing is not a massively bureaucratic system; rather, we are proposing a small premium on fees that will be paid as part of the existing system. My right hon. Friend made the point about good works. Our proposals recognise the massive contribution that many people who come to this country and want to move through to obtaining British citizenship make. We are saying to people that if they make a contribution to building a better local community and a better Britain, that should help to speed them on their way to British citizenship and cement the contribution that they are making to the country.

Jacqui Smith: I strongly agree with my hon. Friend about the benefits of clear status. That is why it is an objective of what we are proposing today that there should be a fair, clear and transparent route through probationary citizenship to British citizenship. She is right that we need that system to be clear and fair.
	As I said to my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh), we are talking about an additional fund that will enable us—in ways, for example, that the Migration Impact Forum is already identifying—to deal with short-term transitional issues of migration that might impact on communities. It is, quite rightly, additional to the considerable sums that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government is making available through local government and for community cohesion, and that we are making available across Government to support English language teaching and the impact on schools of population changes in areas. We recognise the concerns around this issue, and I think that the additional impact that we can make with the fund will be widely welcomed.

Peter Lilley: According to the Government Actuary's Department central projection, net immigration to this country will account for nearly 40 per cent. of the additional households for which we will have to build homes in coming years. Can the Home Secretary point out whether, in any of the documents that she has produced that assess the economic benefits of immigration, she has taken account of the cost of building those extra homes? By how much will that cost be reduced or increased as a result of her statement today?

Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right that precisely because we recognise that many people—including those who are already in this country and those who want to come here—want to obey the law and want to make a contribution economically and to their local communities, we want to acknowledge that in the speed with which they can move through the system to become British citizens.
	The point about the fund is of course important. Because of some of the transition issues that my hon. Friend has identified, colleagues in the Department for Children, Schools and Families have ensured through mainstream funding that there is a fund available for, in particular, those schools that experience a quick change in numbers in-year. That is already being recognised. The question is whether, in addition, it makes sense for us to add a small premium to the application fees so that we can further recognise that impact. I believe that that will make a contribution.

Jacqui Smith: The hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to hear me say that I do not agree with him that his right hon. Friend the shadow Home Secretary was right. We are taking a serious and long-term approach to reform of the immigration system, following on from reform of the way in which we ensure that those who come here will benefit through the points-based system, and from a new approach to protection and policing the system. To be honest, given that the hon. Gentleman belongs to a party whose Members, in Committee, opposed the doubling of the resources that we intend to put into enforcement action, it is a bit rich for him suddenly to criticise the considerably improved enforcement action that we are putting in place. The third stage of the reform is the way in which, in the long term, we make sure that the path to citizenship in this country reflects the values that we share. I am surprised that he does not support that approach.

[Relevent document: Third Report from the Foreign Affairs Committee of Session 2007-08, Foreign Policy Aspects of the Lisbon Treaty, HC 120-I.]

Bernard Jenkin: May I put it to the Foreign Secretary that, important as these matters are, they are not directly relevant to the scrutiny of the treaties that we are discussing? If he wants to make a statement on these matters, he could do so outwith the time for this debate, instead of taking time from Back Benchers who are limited to making seven-minute speeches because the Foreign Secretary has designed the timetable of the Bill to grandstand on these occasions for his own benefit instead of replying to points put to him by Back Benchers on matters pertaining to the treaty.

David Miliband: I assure the hon. Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) that in the time that he has just taken, I could have concluded the relevant section of my speech.
	Fourteen other European countries have joined the UK in recognising Kosovo, as have the US and six others.

David Miliband: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	I was going on to say that the framework that Sir John Major agreed at Maastricht has, with some improvements, helped the European Union not just in the Balkans, but further afield, too. That is why I am clear that some of the amendments tabled by Opposition Members, which would attack the foundations of common foreign and security policy and European security and defence policy, put ideology before logic. In a world with shared challenges requiring co-ordinated responses, CFSP and ESDP are crucial aspects of our response.
	Today, we work with or through the EU on many foreign policy issues. I and the Government believe that we are stronger for it and the world is better for it, too. In the last 12 months, for example, the EU has imposed sanctions on Iran and Zimbabwe beyond those imposed by the UN; mobilised more aid for Palestine than ever before; put 2,000 troops on the ground in Democratic Republic of the Congo in support of the UN; found €54 million for Iraq; provided financial backing for the African Union mission in Darfur; deployed a stabilisation force to neighbouring Chad to protect refugees from the crisis; delivered emergency aid in Pakistan; and shown genuine solidarity with us over Litvinenko, the closure of British Council offices in Russia and Iran's seizure of UK naval personnel.

William Cash: The Foreign Secretary referred to a number of amendments and I am happy to admit that I tabled some of them for a very good reason. Would he accept that, although proper co-operation can be achieved within the framework of an organisation such as the European Union, there is a world of difference between that co-operation and the degree of co-ordination being established within a legal framework, which has been accompanied by mistakes such as those seen in the disarray over a whole raft of matters from Iraq and Kosovo's standing to many others, where the EU is demonstrating that it cannot meet the challenges that the Foreign Secretary mentioned?

Malcolm Rifkind: I agree with the Foreign Secretary that when western European countries genuinely agree with each other on some matter of vital foreign interest, it is highly desirable and beneficial that they should work together. However, will not the Foreign Secretary agree, on reflection, that his statement yesterday that the cobbled-together EU statement on Kosovo showed "clear political leadership" by the European Union was absurd? The issue of Kosovo showed the deepest division on a common foreign policy issue since the divisions on Iraq. The Foreign Secretary does no service to the genuine desire for European co-operation when he describes a failure to achieve European agreement as if it were a success.

David Miliband: I am surprised to find myself disagreeing on this point with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It would only have been a failure if it were for the European Union to recognise the new country of Kosovo. There are divisions within EU countries about whether or not to recognise Kosovo, but it is a matter for individual countries to decide. The matter at hand for the EU is not about recognition and I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would agree with me that it would be quite wrong to move into a world where the EU starts recognising countries when it is in fact a responsibility of member states. In matters that are the responsibility of the EU—first, the deployment of a European mission; secondly, the partnership arrangements between all the countries of the western Balkans; and thirdly, the ultimate objective of EU membership—there should be and is European cohesion.

David Miliband: Fifteen countries, including the UK, recognised the new country of Kosovo within 72 hours of its creation. I would be happy to lay a wager with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that in due course many more European countries will recognise it. We will see if one or two do not recognise it, but as I explained, it must be a matter for individual nation states to decide on recognition. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is only compounding his error, if I may say so, by confusing the responsibility of the European Union with the responsibilities of nation states.

David Miliband: My right hon. Friend is entirely right. Let me proceed with the details to show exactly why that is.
	The treaty does not, repeat not, change the fundamental nature of common foreign and security policy co-operation. That continues to be covered in a separate treaty, subject—as is stated in the treaty for the first time—to "specific rules and procedures". The treaty includes an article—again, it appears for the first time—underlining those distinct arrangements: unanimity as the general rule so a veto for all countries, no legislative acts, and a limited role for Community institutions.
	The Foreign Affairs Committee, whose Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), is present, has welcomed the fact that under the Lisbon treaty it is
	"highly likely that, under the Lisbon Treaty, the Common Foreign and Security Policy will remain an intergovernmental area, driven by the Member States."
	My hon. Friend is right about that. The European Scrutiny Committee—its Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty), is not present at the moment—has said that
	"the largely intergovernmental nature of the CFSP and ESDP will be maintained, with no significant departures from the arrangements which currently apply".
	What the treaty will do is enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and coherence of the current arrangements.

Gordon Banks: The Foreign Secretary has listed a number of aspects of security policy in the treaty. Will he tell us what is NATO's take on the EDSP, and also whether he considers European common defence policy or NATO to be the cornerstone of Europe's future defence?

Peter Lilley: Should not the House be given the details of the position taken by the Government in the European Convention on the constitution in respect of clauses that are identical in the Lisbon treaty? When I raised the matter with the Leader of the House during business questions about 10 days ago, she graciously appeared to accept the point. She said that she would contact the Foreign Secretary and ask him to table, for the purpose of future debates, the position taken by the Government in the European Convention on clauses that are now in the Lisbon treaty, which we are about to debate. Has the Foreign Secretary done that? Has he discussed the matter with the Leader of the House, and if not, why not?

David Miliband: I am sorry if this has not been transmitted to the right hon. Gentleman, but the details of all the Convention discussions are available on the Convention's website. There is no hidden agenda in this respect. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is a very clear answer to his question.

Denis MacShane: Since 1973, under successive Governments, Britain has sent some of its best brains from different Departments—not just the Foreign Office—to work in Brussels, and they have done a good job for Britain. I know that my right hon. Friend is under huge budgetary pressures, but I urge him to see what he can do to ensure that as the external action service develops Brits help to shape it, both in Europe's interest and British interest, which I believe genuinely coincide.

David Miliband: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, but inherent in it is a significant correction to what some of his hon. Friends were saying earlier. He used the word "unanimously", and the troops would be deployed only on the basis of unanimous agreement. He raised the spectre that the EU would not be able to perform an important task because unanimous agreement would be required before any forces could be deployed under PSC. It is a significant point, but it is right that unanimous agreement should be achieved before forces are deployed, and I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree with that.
	I do not wish to anticipate future conflicts, but the ESDP is involved in 13 missions at the moment, which gives some indication of where it is going. I know of the hon. Gentleman's service in the armed forces and it is, of course, respected on both sides of the House.

Doug Henderson: Is not the reality that there are some circumstances in which it will be far more appropriate for NATO to become involved, usually when there is an north American influence or interest? In other circumstances, where there is still a serious issue to be faced and with a specific European interest, as in Chad, for example—[Hon. Members: "Chad?"] There is a serious situation in Chad that needs to be addressed and there are many European Union interests involved. It would be better for the EU to provide a combination of forces for that situation, rather than NATO.

David Miliband: I think that the hon. Gentleman would agree that, beyond France—and we could debate exactly where it fits in his schema, although it does have those capabilities—which is outside NATO for these purposes, capabilities are severely limited.
	I shall move to a conclusion with two final points about defence. There are changes to the mandate because the treaty expands the list of tasks that ESDP can undertake. The treaty also commits member states to offer assistance in the event that another member state is the
	"victim of armed aggression on its territory".
	That means that EU member states that are not members of NATO are now committed to the defence of their European partners.
	The treaty is in Britain's interest because it will make the EU's common foreign and security policy much more efficient, and it will give greater coherence to our actions and those of our partners on the global stage. In short, it will make the EU a more serious foreign policy player, not to the detriment of British foreign policy, but to our advantage. I say to Opposition Members that it is no good supporting European action around the world and then tabling amendments that would make it more difficult. The European Union is vital to tacking the global issues we face today. A more effective European Union is in our interest, not contrary to it. The treaty acknowledges that, and gives us the tools to create a vital and effective common foreign and security policy. I commend it to the House.

William Hague: The right hon. Gentleman is making an extraordinary accusation when he says that we have been colluding with Mr. Putin, whom we have never met. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that it was provided for in the arrangements for the presidency of the Council of Europe that the position would be taken by a socialist. One of the people who argued that the Russians should take the presidency was, as I understand it, the leader of the Labour delegation and former Deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). The accusations made against the Conservative party by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) are rather misplaced.

William Hague: I do not think it would have been necessary to pass this treaty for the Council of Ministers to be able to discuss the situation in Iraq. I suspect that the Council did not discuss Iraq because it would have been too difficult for its members to reach any agreement on it. I recommend that the Council take the advice of the Labour party's illustrious former Foreign Secretaries and concentrate on reaching practical agreement rather than on changing the rules.
	In fact, the present Foreign Secretary has said that the EU's actions on climate change have done more to show the relevance of the EU than any amount of institutional tinkering. I agree with him on that as well, and indeed the Opposition are in full agreement with that view. There is probably near unanimity in the House about it, so it is even less defensible that the Government, from the Prime Minister down, instead of standing up in the negotiations for their well founded preference for practical delivery over increasing the EU's powers through institutional change, should have rolled over and agreed to the profound changes and increases in the EU's powers that we are discussing today.
	That is why there was complete agreement in this country when the Government said that they had a "red line" and that there must be no intrusion into Britain's right to an independent foreign policy. The fact that Ministers have secured a "declaration" attached to the treaty that makes clear our rights in foreign policy shows both the importance that they attach to foreign policy and their belief that the treaty intrudes in that area. It as a pity, to say the least, that the legal adviser to the European Scrutiny Committee should consider the existence of that declaration, as opposed to a protocol, to be legally meaningless, but it is instructive that Ministers felt that a declaration had to be made.
	It is an illustration of the consensus that has existed in the House for many years that almost every provision in the treaty that concerns foreign policy has been opposed by Ministers at one time or another. It is now the Foreign Secretary's job to put a positive gloss on everything that his predecessors opposed in the Government's name. He now says that they were asking "searching questions"—a phrase that recurred throughout his speech this afternoon—so let us look at some of the "searching questions" that they asked.
	In the first place, the Government were opposed to the EU Foreign Minister or high representative also being a member of the European Commission. As the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn, who is now the Secretary of State for Justice, said:
	"We would have preferred to have explicit separation of those two posts."
	That is a bit more than a question, although perhaps not very searching. At the same time, Ministers were trenchantly opposed to the idea that the proposals made by the EU Foreign Minister should be agreed by QMV. In December 2003, when he was still Foreign Secretary, the present Secretary of State for Justice also said:
	"QMV on proposals made by the Union's Minister for Foreign Affairs is simply unacceptable".
	Is "simply unacceptable" the tone of a searching question? I do not know what things are like in the former Foreign Secretary's house, but when my wife tells me that something is "simply unacceptable" it is not a searching question but something much more emphatic. The right hon. Gentleman also said:
	"We made it clear that common foreign and security policy is an inter-governmental matter, and must be established unanimously."
	Yet that "searching question" was cast aside. The article to which he was objecting is in the treaty, and it was in the constitution. The difficulty with it is obvious, as is the reason that the Government opposed it. The Council could unanimously ask the EU Foreign Minister to present a proposal, with Britain's agreement; but if the proposal was unsatisfactory to the British Foreign Secretary, the EU Foreign Minister would then find that that unsatisfactory proposal was subject to QMV. The Government evidently shared our fears about that, but they capitulated.
	The Government capitulated again over the creation of the European diplomatic service, or external action service. When that service was proposed, the then Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Rotherham, said in a written answer:
	"We believe that it remains for EU member states to organise their respective bilateral diplomatic services at the national level."—[ Official Report, 23 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 226W.]
	I am delighted that the right hon. Gentleman is present to be reminded of his version of a "searching question". It clearly stated the Government's policy that they were not in favour of a European external action service.

William Hague: Yes, although it is right that British nominees should take part if the service is established. When the right hon. Member for Rotherham referred to the "best brains" being sent, he was rather giving a hint that he would like to sent as one of the service's ambassadors, as the phrase is one that he would certainly like to apply to himself. However, my hon. Friend makes a good point. The EU is sometimes in the habit of setting up institutions before it has the full legal authority to do so. The service should not be established or recruited to before the treaty has been ratified by Parliament.
	Yet the Government have now agreed to the creation of such a service and to its rules on diplomatic and consular protection being determined by QMV, even though they used to be opposed to all of that. The Government's opposition was deep and long standing: as recently as last June, only days before the treaty was signed, the Foreign Secretary's immediate predecessor, the right hon. Member for Derby, South, fought a spectacularly unsuccessful last-minute rearguard action against the creation of the external action service. She reportedly said that the creation of such a service could be seen as "state building" and that Britain was opposed to it.
	How can it be that the creation of the service was sufficiently alarming to the Foreign Office for the Foreign Secretary of our country to make every effort to stop it even at the final hour but, when the Government caved in and agreed to it, it became something that was no threat at all and a matter that Parliament did not need to worry about?
	At the same dinner in Brussels, at the Foreign Affairs Council that preceded the Lisbon summit, the right hon. Lady the former Foreign Secretary also made a last-ditch effort to prevent the EU Foreign Minister or high representative from becoming the permanent chairman of the meetings of Foreign Ministers. Again, if that is of no account, why did the Government go to such lengths to try to prevent it? Is it the present Foreign Secretary's position that his predecessor was wrong to try to prevent those things? Was she only asking "searching questions" when she declared her opposition at the last minute?
	Then there is the matter of representation at the UN Security Council. Once again, the treaty carries the exact language of the constitution, saying:
	"When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the UN Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union's position."
	The Government's approach to that was unambiguous. When the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) put forward the Government's views to the European convention drafting the constitution, he argued that that entire paragraph should be struck out altogether. He said:
	"The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council."
	Another "searching question": the UK could not accept the paragraph and wanted it struck out. Having got nowhere with that argument, however, the Government instead proposed another amendment that suggested that the EU Foreign Minister could only make a request to speak on behalf of the EU. Overruled on that "searching question" as well, the Government simply gave in completely.
	To be fair, the Foreign Affairs Committee has said that the provision allowing the EU high representative to speak at the UN Security Council would make little difference to current practice, and the Government of course have stated their agreement with that view. However, if they were confident that it made no difference to current practice, why was their initial hostility to the idea so emphatic and repeated? Presumably it is because they saw it as the thin end of a wedge.
	Subsequently, of course, it has turned out that, while the Government have been resisting that wedge, the Prime Minister has appointed to the Foreign Office a Minister who is the wedge himself. The noble Lord Malloch-Brown said on 2 October 2006 that the European Commission would eventually represent the EU and the United Nations as the voice of all member states, adding:
	"I think it will go in stages...It's not going to happen with a flash and a bang",
	but
	"as quickly as possible."
	That is not the Government's policy, but it is the policy of one of their members. As Lord Malloch-Brown sees himself, to use his own words, as
	"the older figure, the wise eminence behind the young Foreign Secretary",
	and as the Prime Minister saw fit to make him the Minister with responsibility for UN reform, who knows where it might lead?

Denis MacShane: The right hon. Gentleman is extraordinarily kind. We have Rotherham connections. In an article in the  Financial Times, the Conservative MEP Caroline Jackson said:
	"On the continent, the Conservatives now have a bad reputation (rapidly getting worse) for crass and offensive behaviour".
	That is not true of the right hon. Gentleman in the House, although it is true of the Conservatives on the continent. Does he not agree that in the treaty, any move to the so-called passerelle depends, again, on unanimity? He is cherry picking bits of the treaty but not reading them across. He is a great speaker, but a poor lawyer.

William Hague: My hon. Friend is probably right about that. He made that point earlier in the debate to good effect.
	Let me summarise the position. The provisions of the Lisbon treaty on foreign, security and defence policy are therefore not difficult to characterise. They are, by common agreement across the House, more substantial than the Government have acknowledged. Although they are described as limited in their implications, even a short analysis suggests that their future implications could be far-reaching. For that reason, they have been, almost without exception, opposed by Ministers during the negotiations of the treaty, and for the same reasons they are opposed by the Opposition today.
	Yet the Government have at every opportunity tried to keep Parliament and the public in the dark about the treaty in general, and its provisions on foreign policy and defence in particular. They negotiated in secret. They have tried to cover up the importance of those provisions. Now they are delaying the crucial decisions about how they will work in practice until it is too late for MPs and voters to have any say on the matter at all.
	If the treaty is ratified, only the passage of months and years will inform us whether the assurances of the Foreign Secretary today were to be relied upon, but I suspect that the judgment of time on Ministers, whose complacent advocacy of these proposals has replaced their virulent opposition to them in the recent past, will be very harsh indeed.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I should remind the House that Mr. Speaker has placed a limit of seven minutes on Back-Bench speeches, which operates from now.

Bob Spink: The right hon. Gentleman thinks that no one disagrees with that. Is he aware of the ICN poll which shows that 80 per cent. of British people feel that Britain should retain total control of its defence policy, and only 15 per cent. think the EU should be allowed to dabble in that? Does he think those people are deluded or just stupid?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) should not be disturbed by barracking from a sedentary position.

Edward Davey: The right hon. Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) began by parading his history of Euroscepticism; he then explained that he was going to support the Lisbon treaty. It would be better if we saw such open-mindedness in all parties in the House. The right hon. Gentleman has made a judgment on the facts, not on the fantasy.
	On the subject of fantasy, I should say that the speech made by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) reminded me of my old scout leader—

Edward Davey: No. My old scout leader had a great capacity for telling scary ghost stories around the camp fire, frightening the naive younger cubs, but amusing the informed and experienced. The right hon. Gentleman's speech fooled no one, especially when he was forced to admit that the Conservatives oppose every single measure on common foreign security policy in the treaty.
	A feature of our debates on the treaty has been that the Conservatives have sounded their opposition to everything with great tales of alarm. They have given warnings of doom, like a Dad's Army made up only of Private Frazers. Given our current position on European and foreign defence policies, the Conservatives are about as relevant and useful as Dad's Army—out of touch, not only with Europe, but with NATO and the United States of America.

Edward Davey: I am not breaking my pledge because I will be backing a referendum on whether we are in or out. That is the closest question to a referendum on a constitutional treaty.
	The constitutional treaty will contain the treaties from Maastricht, from Rome, from Nice, from Amsterdam and from the Single European Act. A referendum on that treaty was in effect an in-or-out referendum, as we said at the time. We are keeping our pledge; the problem is that the Conservatives are trying to pretend that a pledge for a referendum on the reform treaty—a minor amending treaty—in any way meets their proposal. That is because the Conservatives are totally split on Europe. They would not be prepared to go to the people on the question whether Britain should be in or out.

Edward Davey: The right hon. Gentleman's interventions are always very amusing.
	We broadly welcome the Lisbon treaty and the changes in it, but there are inevitably a number of unresolved issues that raise legitimate questions, and I hope that the Foreign Secretary—or his colleague, the Minister for Europe—can address them as they respond to the debate. In seeking those answers, he should not think that Liberal Democrat Members suspect some dark conspiracy is afoot—we just ask him in the spirit of genuine inquiry.
	Perhaps the least clear element of the package before us is how the European external action service will work. I hope we can get some clarity on that, as I believe that it has the potential for delivering tangible benefits for UK citizens by increasing the availability of consular assistance while reducing costs to the taxpayer. What chance will this House have to scrutinise proposals for taking forward the European external action service? How will it be monitored in the future? For example, will the European Parliament, or this Parliament, have a role in the overview of its budget? What specific steps are Her Majesty's Government taking to ensure that our own diplomatic service—and the rest of Whitehall, from the Department for International Development to the Ministry of Defence, and so on—can engage fully with the newly structured European external action service, so that UK civil servants play their usual starring roles? In terms of policy development in the UK now, how will the UK national security strategy be assisted by the new apparatus? Will the European security strategy, which received such a broad welcome, feature in whatever new domestic ideas are under consideration? Finally, on defence aspects, do Her Majesty's Government have any plans to launch any particular initiatives under the permanent structured co-operation arrangements when the Lisbon treaty comes into force?
	I partly single out those arrangements because I have been astonished by how hostile the Conservatives seem to be towards them. Their party argues for a multi-speed Europe; it invented the idea of opting out in Europe. Its defence spokesman has had the brass neck to attack the proposals for permanent structured co-operation, saying that it
	"will allow countries to 'opt-out' of any further defence integration and will create an 'inner-core' of Member-States interested in furthering military integration."
	I thought that that was the Conservatives' approach to the European Union. It is simply breath-taking.
	Then we come to the inconsistency of the position adopted by the shadow Foreign Secretary. I have been fascinated to see how often the right hon. Gentleman demands or supports action by the EU on one day, but on the next opposes anything and everything that increases the EU's ability to act—he is always willing the ends, and never willing the means. So, on one day, the right hon. Gentleman says, on Russia and the Litvinenko affair:
	"We welcome the news that the Government have received strong support for their stance from European Union partners".
	Then he says, in opposition to the proposed EU high representative in the Lisbon treaty:
	"Our own voice in the world will be less important".
	On another day, he says, on Darfur, that Britain
	"should also seek to do more through stronger EU action"
	but then on another occasion says that an EU diplomatic service is "unacceptable". On Iraq, on one day he will say,
	"I am referring to the European Union, alongside the United States, taking measures that go beyond the measures agreed at the UN Security Council. It is time for EU nations to do more."
	Yet back in his leadership days, he complained that the then Prime Minister had signed up at Nice
	"to an independent and autonomous European identity, with only ad hoc arrangements linking it to NATO...Is it not the case that duplicate and conflicting structures are being set up?"
	I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman is wriggling, writhing and, above all, wrong on those issues.
	Perhaps it has something to do with the right hon. Gentleman having three former Conservative Foreign Secretaries sitting with him in Parliament, with 14 years of office between them, who support the Lisbon treaty's foreign and defence policy proposals, and having to reconcile their views with those of his Back Benchers and, often, his Front-Bench spokespeople.

Edward Davey: I would say to them that they should ignore everything that the hon. Gentleman ever says.
	It is interesting to read what the Conservative Member of the European Parliament, Caroline Jackson, said this week in the  Financial Times, when she called the Conservatives' attitude to Europe a "poisonous fungus". She said that they are getting a reputation for bad manners towards their continental allies, and that the time warp of the party's European attitudes has two damaging effects, one being that the right-wing, "nasty" and dogmatic aspects of the party—so off-putting to voters from 1997 to 2005—are still alive; and she makes it clear that she thinks the Conservatives are unelectable until they sort this out.
	We are sometimes told that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) has been searching for his clause IV moment. Some said that he found it, then bottled it, over grammar schools. Yet the truth is that the Conservatives' real clause IV is Europe, and the fact that so few of them realise that shows how far away they are from power. When Lisbon is ratified, as it will be, the debate on EU foreign and defence policy will move on, leaving the Tories beached once more. Yet that debate is crucial. Take Kosovo. Whisper it for now, but the EU may be the secret that unlocks sustainable peace in the western Balkans, with many nations acting together—yes, with their differences, but still able to act together peacefully to help other people on our shared continent through the largest civilian European security and defence policy mission to date.
	Take the relationship between the EU's defence initiatives and NATO—one of the Conservatives bêtes noires. Here President Sarkozy, with his rapprochement with Washington and his clear desire to return France to NATO's structures, is showing leadership that Britain should surely respond to and encourage. The choice that the Conservatives say that we must make in defence policy—either the US and NATO or the EU—has always been a false one, but the new incumbent at the �lyse palace is making that ever clearer. Then take what is perhaps the EU's most significant new strategic relationship for this centurythat with China. There is now a steady stream of works attempting to divine what the Chinese think of Europe. Inevitably, it is hardly conclusive, nor should it determine our policy. However, from the perspective of a country the size of China, with the diversity of China, the view that Europe needs to get its act together and speak and act more coherently comes across loud and clear.
	In the debates on the amendments, I hope to say more about defence, particularly missile defence, but let me now touch on the most crucial EU relationship of allthat with the US. When we look at the rapidly reducing field of candidates for US President, we can clearly see that the days of a White House full of unilateralist neo-cons have gone. The next US Administration will not seek to conscript a coalition of the willingit will seek to coax a co-operation of colleagues. Europe must prepare for that.
	The many failings of Europe in foreign, security and defence policies in the past need to be addressed, so that we can renew and strengthen Europe's relationship with the US. Yes, that does mean challenging others about their investment in military capacity, but it also means building trust, commitment and structures, so that Europe can be a better partnership. Of course, NATO is essential to that process, but the experience of Afghanistan must surely make those who thought NATO was the unique answer to an EU-US partnership want to review their position. An EU that can agree common positions on foreign and defence policy will be a bulwark and a bolster to NATO.
	Indeed, it is through close relationships developed throughout the policy arena within the EU that the chances of building more effective and sustainable alliances will be made stronger, not weaker. The most anti-American thing one could do is to reject the proposals before us, and retreat into a balkanised bilateralism that has often failed us in the past.

Edward O'Hara: It is a pleasure to share in the poignancy of the act of apostasy of my right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth)a poignancy that perhaps only two lads from Huyton could fully appreciate. I shall do two simple things in this short address: set out what I see as necessary and beneficial developments in European foreign, security and defence policy in the past decade or two, and then move on to the difference that the Lisbon treaty makes.
	Even bitter opponents of the European Union will recognise the advantages of being part of the Common Market. What opponents do not always recognise is the corollary: the extent of the commonality of interest that that implies. It extends to responsibility for the protection of those at risk within our sphere of influence and to the defence of common interests.
	The Balkan wars of the 1990s demonstrated how weak European Governments were when acting alone, and so the need for a common European foreign policy was perceived, in order to address future crises better. Following the St. Malo agreement of 1998, we saw the agreement of European defence policies at Helsinki in 1999 to support the common foreign policy, particularly through the development of the rapid deployment capability. That is why Europe was able to take over responsibilities from NATO in Bosnia, and to continue work in Congo, Sudan, and the other places in that impressive list of interventions for good cited by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary in his opening address.
	In December 2003, the agreement on European security strategy spelled out the main threats to European security, which were terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, regional conflicts, failed states and organised crime. None of those issues is purely military. They all require more than a military response, and they demand a complete rethink of how we deploy civil and military resources to address future threats. Also, importantly, they require maximum collaborative effort, because such threats do not confine themselves to national frontiers.
	Such matters give rise to the consideration of defence procurement, rationalisation of the European Union defence industry base and, importantly, interoperability between our forceshence the formation of the European Defence Agency to break down barriers, to encourage cross-border trade in military equipment and to harmonise the process of research, development and production of weapons and equipment. Such considerations have been made all the more necessary by reductions in defence budgets following the end of the cold war. As previous speakers have pointed out, the divergence of interests between the EU and the USA meant that we could not continue to depend entirely on NATO for European and security needs.
	We are witnessing a transformation of European forces in terms of their purpose, their equipment and their operation. I was at a conference on this transformation of European forces in Paris about a fortnight ago, and much high praise was given to the European Defence Agency by European defence procurement Ministers and by high-ranking military officers. Indeed, much praise is due to Nick Witney, a Britthe director who got the EDA off the ground.
	What does all this have to do with the Lisbon treaty? Quite a lot. I am one of those who says that the treaty is emphatically not constitutional. It reforms institutions that need reform, specifically in the context of today's debate. The current EU institutions for making foreign policy are inadequate for the collaborative approach. The rotating presidency means a lack of continuity and expertise, which frustrates our American colleagues, for example. The institutional split between the Council of Ministers, which is diplomatic, and the Commission, which is economic, is counter-productive and inhibits partnership work. The reform treaty will improve the situation in a number of ways to allow for positive, more effective action, such as the merging of the jobs of the high representative and the Commissioner for External Relations, and the downgrading of the rotating presidency. It is a myth that the rotating presidency will take away powers from the UK. As was said by a previous contributor to the debate, if that were so, how could Spain and Greece go their own way on Kosovo?
	I put the case that collaborative effort is needed to promote and defend common and individual interests arising out of the successful development of the EU, which we all share. I commend the treaty to the House.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I now have to announce the result of the Division deferred from the previous day.
	On the draft Shropshire (Structural Change) Order 2008, the Ayes were 257, the Noes were 164, so the motion was agreed to.
	 [The Division List s  are published at the end of today's debates.]

Stuart Bell: I am grateful to follow the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) and I share his view on the hyperbole heard from all parts of the House and outside. He rightly spent time on Kosovo and referred to the situation nine years ago, when he may have been much closer to the scene. However, the situation nine years ago is not the situation now. That is the important point that we have to understand and accept, and which has indeed been accepted, not only by the Foreign Secretary yesterday, but by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) in his response.
	I agree entirely with the view of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea on a common foreign policy. It is not possibleit is not in the treaty, nor is it anywhere statedto have foreign policies based on qualified majority voting. The qualified majority voting principle was introduced in Amsterdam in 1997, on the basis of secondary considerations. The fact that Romania, Spain and Cyprus have not recognised Kosovo shows that it is perfectly right, in respect of unanimity in foreign policy, that each individual state can and does go its own way. I also agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the question of the lowest common denominator. As someone who supports the European Union and has done for many years, I find it sad that it is the lowest common denominator that unites member states.
	One subject that has not been mentioned todayI am happy to be the first to get into itis that it is almost 10 years since 4 December 1998, when the UK Prime Minister Tony Blair met French President Jacques Chirac at St. Malo in what became a defining moment in the development of defence policy. We have had a great debate today, with concerns expressed by the Opposition, on the role of NATO. However, at that summit in 1998 the two leaders resolved the dilemma of the Union's relationship with NATO, declaring that Union security would rest with NATO.
	It has been pointed out that President Sarkozy has made some statements about NATO and France getting closer, which would be beneficial. However, Prime Minister Tony Blair and President Chirac agreed at St. Malo not only that NATO would be the defence of Europe, but that there should be some institutional and practical arrangements, to act militarily where NATO chooses not to act. The hon. Member for Bournemouth, East (Mr. Ellwood) made some interesting points about that when he was here, but did not feel that that could happen under the European Union.
	However, it was agreed at St. Malo that there would beand could behumanitarian and rescue tasks. They could include peacekeeping operations or crisis management, under principles already laid down in what were known as the Petersberg tasks, to which the Foreign Secretary and the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) have referred. The Petersberg tasks were agreed at the Western European Union ministerial meeting in June 1992.

William Cash: My concern is that the hon. Gentleman is forgetting that there is, effectively, a mutual defence clause in the treaty, which prescribes that where one member state is attacked, the others are obliged to provide it with
	aid and assistance by all...means in their power.
	That takes the St. Malo position much further. Furthermore, just as, for example, the Germans are not doing the right thing in relation to article 5, with respect to what is happening in Afghanistan, so I fear that duplication with NATO will produce exactly the same kind of results that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind) mentioned, namely that things will start fragmenting and people will start breaking up the arrangements, which will affect NATO and undermine our overall commitment.

Stuart Bell: There are 21 member states in the European Union that are also members of NATO. In the situation that the hon. Gentleman described, of one member state not coming to the defence of another that was attacked, if he is saying that that is what we should do, that would not go down well elsewhere. He also widens the debate when he talks about NATO in Afghanistan and the relationship with Germany, which is a separate issue. However, I agree that there ought to be stronger representation of NATO forces in Afghanistan from countries other than ours.
	Let me return to my central theme and refer again to the points made by the hon. Member for Bournemouth, East, who served in the Army, and the comments relating to Lord Owen's success on ground. The European Union's missions over the past few years, to which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary referred, have included police missionsit must be stressed that they were indeed police missionsin Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Chad. When Chad was mentioned, there was some protest from the Opposition Benches from a sedentary position. Actually, the intervention in Chad, by way of a police mission, was to secure refugee camps. I am sure that the refugees in those camps would not have appreciated the kind of reaction that we have heard in the Chamber today. Also, there have been police missions in Moldova and Ukraine, so the EU has had some positive effect in various parts of the world.
	Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary referred to the work of the group of three Union Foreign Ministers, who have been holding talks with Iran on its nuclear enrichment programme. That, of course, had the support of the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks. This is another element on which the Union can work together. The point made by the right hon. Gentleman, which is perfectly valid, was that the relationships between the Foreign Ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom come from intergovernmental action. That is perfectly right.
	There are still pillars within the EUand the defence policy and the foreign policythat allow member states to act together, as we have done in relation to Iran. I have already made the point that Spain, Cyprus and Romania declined to recognise Kosovo on the ground that they are independent states within the Union that have their own foreign policies.

James Arbuthnot: I take a simple view on European matters: we are asked to adopt a treaty that brings about a constitutionnot just for Europe, but for this countryand we were promised in advance a referendum on that treaty, so it is utterly shameful that the Government should now deprive us of that referendum.
	It is all perfectly simple stuff. When politicians make promises, they should keep their word. If they do not do so, there is no point in their speaking at all. Worse, that brings into discredit the very process of government. Why should people turn out to vote in elections on the basis of manifestos to which, they believe, the very people who wrote them will pay no attention? This is absolutely shameful.
	I also take a simple view on defence matters. First, defence is the most important duty of the Government. I find it hard to understand that a duty so crucial should be funded by slightly more than 2 per cent. of our gross domestic product. I shall return to that point. Secondly, the cornerstone of our defence is NATO. Thirdly, if the EU wants to add to the defence provided by NATO, I have no intrinsic objection to thatprovided that it does not thereby weaken NATO in any way.
	The Defence Committee is conducting an inquiry into NATO and European defence. I have to warn the House that, although everything else that I have been talking about is very simple, the Lisbon treaty is so far from being simple that I doubt whether we shall be able to conduct a deep forensic analysis of its effect on defence, and if we did, I suspect that it would unbalance our report on the future of NATO. We intend to publish that report shortly in advance of the Bucharest summit.
	In evidence to the Committee, the Secretary of State said that the Lisbon treaty would not undermine NATO and that its provisions make it quite clear that NATO remains the foundation of the collective defence of its members. That is very good news indeed. The question is, will it turn out to be true? I welcome that assurance, because it is essential that nothing in the treaty adversely affects the very effective military alliance that is NATO, but I hope that the Minister winding up the debate will repeat that assurance unequivocally to the House.
	Clearly, the ambition of many in the EU is to give the EU a stronger defence role, and it is true that, in some respects, the EU might be able to bring something to the party that NATO could notfor example, I believe that intervention in Lebanon was much more appropriate for the European Union than for NATO. What I do not understand, however, is why the European Union is so intent on building up a defence role for itself when it is so reluctant to pay for it, to build its capabilities or to deploy troops to Afghanistan, which many EU members voted for.
	One of the main problems that NATO has encountered is the huge disparity in spending between the United States and the European members of NATO. Put simply, Europe does not spend anywhere near enough on defence. As a result of that lack of spending on defence, there is now a huge and growing capability gap between the United States and Europe. If we are to continue to be able to operate with the United States and to be a worthwhile ally, we need to address that as a matter of the highest priority. Any means of bridging the gap and encouraging Europeans to invest more in defence and to develop greater military capabilities can only be welcomed.
	We are told that the provisions in the treaty on permanent structured co-operation will enable more effective military capabilities to be developed. Will they? I doubt it. What seems to be lacking in Europe is not structures, but the political will to commit to defence. If the Secretary of State or the Minister who winds up this debate could explain to the House how permanent structured co-operation will work in practice and how those provisions will enhance European military capabilities, I would be delighted.
	Perhaps the Minister could also explain his understanding of qualified majority voting on permanent structured co-operation. Some people who take a close interest in these mattersafter 21 years in the House of Commons, this is my maiden speech on European affairsbelieve that it will deprive the United Kingdom of our veto in defence matters. I do not ask for an assurance on that because I do not know how worth while such an assurance would be. It will play out in the fullness of time.
	Finally, on European Union-NATO co-operation, the Government have said that the Lisbon treaty will ensure that the European security and defence policy is NATO-friendly. That is jolly good, but at the moment there is little co-operation between the EU and NATO. In fact, there is little communication between them. That is damaging, inefficient and ridiculous. It does not seem to me that the Lisbon treaty adds anything that will improve co-operation between the EU and NATO.
	We are discussing defence and security provisions. In practice, the tests will be these: what difference will the treaty make to the practicalities of European defence? Will it improve the military capabilities of the European countries, which lag so starkly behind the United States? Will it assist with the deployability of European forces? Will it lead to greater co-operation between the EU and NATO? These are the key tests, and I have to say that, on each of them, my own answer is: I doubt it.

Gisela Stuart: For the record, I should like to reaffirm my belief that we ought to have a referendum on this matter, because all three parties have promised that we would. My right hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley, North and Sefton, East (Mr. Howarth) was trying to explain why the treaty and the constitution were different, and why that made a difference. In answer, I would simply say that, after 30 years of various treaties and something that may once have been called a constitution, we have seen a considerable shift in our relationship with the European Union. We now have a presumption that the majority of our policies will involve a Community methodthat is, that the European Parliament will have a role. For that reason, too, a referendum is appropriate.
	It is interesting that so many of the treaty provisions on security and defence are enabling measures, because that makes it difficult to have an informed debate on the issues. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) thought that the objections to the treaty were simply scaremongering. When I was listening to the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), I suddenly discovered a new emotion. We all know about the Jeremy Paxman test, when he is talking to a politician and wonders why this fatherless creature is doing certain things to him. Listening to the right hon. Gentleman, I found myself wondering why he was making me laugh. He does so not only because he is a very funny speaker, but because he manages to hide the total emptiness behind what the Conservatives are trying to achieve. I have no idea whether they think that the present arrangements on defence and foreign policy are perfect, or whether there is anything in the proposals that they agree with. All I know is that, whenever the right hon. Gentleman gets up to speak, I find him incredibly funny. That serves a purpose, but we should be cautious, because nothing concrete is coming from that side of the House.

Stuart Bell: Did not the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) give the game away when he said that he did not want the treaty at all?

Gisela Stuart: Indeed, but there are still questions for the Conservatives to answer.
	I want to raise a couple of issues about future capabilities, and about the ability of the treaty to achieve certain things. I have some concerns in that regard. When the Foreign Affairs Committee took evidence, one idea that emerged was to acknowledge that foreign policy was now in a separate pillar, that we recognised the intergovernmental nature of the arrangements and that there were certain provisions for movement towards qualified majority voting. For quite a few of us, however, the provisions stretch to the limit what I find just about acceptable. We were promised votes in the House on any further changes, but I do not think that single votes will be sufficient. We all know how any Government can just whip through a single vote. I hope that the Government will make a commitment to introducing primary legislation, as a safeguard, should there be any further movement towards QMV in foreign, security and defence policy.
	That brings me to my next issue, which is parliamentary oversight. Let us take as an example the external action service. I again refer hon. Members to the Foreign Affairs Committee's report, in which we list a number of questions that have so far gone unanswered. Where is the accountability for the further movements? Will there be parliamentary oversight of those movements? I suspect that there will be European parliamentary oversight, because there is an increased movement towards the European Parliament exercising such oversight, but not oversight by national Parliaments. We need to be careful about what is being done in our name, and to take part in shaping these changes at the time, rather than responding to them afterwards.
	This thing is currently called the external action service. It does not have a very catchy name, and before long it will be called what was intended to begin withthe European Union's diplomatic servicejust as the high representative will in time be called the Foreign Minister. To anyone who says that that is scaremongering, I would say that I recall sitting here in 1997 when we created a Scottish Parliament and it was made quite clear that there would be a Scottish Executive, not a Scottish Government. But what happened when the right hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Mr. Salmond) came to power in Scotland? The first thing he did was unscrew the plaques of the Queen from any Scottish buildings and he then started referring to himself as the Scottish Government. It did not take long for the BBC also to refer in its news to the Scottish Government. Language is important, so when a name does not sit easily, we should be careful that it does not become certain other things.
	Another aspect of the treaty provisions that worries me tremendously is that we are creating more opportunities for power, but very few opportunities for added responsibility. A number of earlier speakers picked up that theme in relation to defence. We commit ourselves to peacekeeping and military police training, which are very important, but what is singularly lackingthe problem seems to be getting worseis combat troops. Who within the EU is providing the combat troops? There is no increased commitment in the EU to provide them.
	I recall a wonderful moment during a European Convention when an Austrian MEP got up to say that he did not give countries who provide soldiers the right to determine how they should be deployed, in response to which I got up to say, Precisely those who provide the soldiers have the right to determine how they are deployed. We need to be much clearer about how those ambitions can be fulfilled. My key point, however, in respect of those positions, is how Parliament relates to them; there must be no move to qualified majority voting without primary legislation. We also need to look into our own procedures for scrutinising the expansion of some of these activities.

Ann Winterton: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart). May I suggest to her a third reason for holding a referendum on the constitutional European Union (Amendment) Billthat people much younger than me and perhaps just slightly younger than the hon. Lady have never had an opportunity to vote on these matters in this country? It is also a pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot). Like him, I believe that the defence of the realm is the first priority of any Government, and I would like to pick up one of the themes about defence mentioned at the end of the excellent speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague).
	The only real teeth offered by the Lisbon treaty concerning defence are the incorporation of the European Defence Agencyit was, of course, a key part of the European Union constitutioninto that treaty. That is reinforced by the administrative measures being developed within the framework of the existing treaties, chipping away at the national interest provisions of the treaty of Rome while at the same time incrementally increasing the scope of procurement directives to cover more and more military expenditure.
	Thus, the main thrust of EU military integration is still being directed through the Monnet method, by which I mean slow and steady integration through economic means with the aim of Europeanising defence equipment. The idea is that the use of common equipment, allied to common foreign policy objectives from which common doctrines evolve, will eventually lead to European military forces being drawn together, resulting in due course in total integration.
	Also key to that integration process is the European rapid reaction force, which espouses among other things the doctrine of specialisation. The idea is that single nations, and especially smaller nations, need not provide balanced forcesthat is, complete functioning formationsbut simply components of a larger multinational force, thus fielding truly integrated European forces rather than national forces working together. The thinking behind that stealthy policy objective ensures that, while each member state has military components, only the European Union could actually field a complete, functioning military force.
	However, the grit in the oyster is Britain's insistence on maintaining its own balanced force which, at a certain level, is capable of carrying out self-sustaining operations in a multinational environment, thus defeating the object of integration. Furthermore, because the United Kingdom is fighting a real war alongside the Americans, it is driven by operational imperatives when it comes to the procurement of equipment, rather than by the notional, theoretical equipment profiles recommended in the headline goals specifying the equipment needed for the European rapid reaction force.
	After a round of spending in the last decade aimed at meshing in with the ERRF, and the last Prime Minister's European contribution within the St. Malo agreement, the United Kingdom is now diverging from, rather than converging with, EU military structures and ambitions, moving closer to United States forces as it becomes more deeply embedded in Afghan operations. Therefore, practically speaking, UK involvement in EU military integration is at its lowest ebb for some time.
	What the Lisbon treaty seeks to do is add to earlier treaties small steps of politically rather than operationally driven integration, but for the Commission that does not go far enough. The very first full-scale attempt at military integration within the European defence community took place in 1950, preceding the treaty of Rome. That inspired the first attempt at a European constitution to bind the European political community, and was set up to control the European army. The raison d'tre of the European Union suddenly becomes very clear.
	Thus the main conclusion to be drawn is that the original ambitions of the integrationists are not satisfied by the treaty, and that they will have to come back for more. That puts usand by us I mean the people on the opposite side of that argumentin the unsatisfactory position of warning about what can be dismissed as ifs, buts and maybes, rather than attacking hard, concrete proposals. It is all very woolly, nebulous and difficult to grasp: the typical nightmare for those of us who are fighting a project nine tenths of whichas with an icebergis hidden from sight.

Denis MacShane: I shall not give way, because I have only four minutes in which to speak.
	The right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea also went on to say that the high representative would not be the overarching controller of European Union foreign policy. He made the important distinction between a common foreign policy, which we should work towards and co-operate within, and almost the impossibility of a single foreign policy. I think that I understood his metaphor correctlyI hope I did, because I wrote that article in the  Financial Times in June 2003. It is good to have my words reflected back towards me.
	The right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks is one of our most powerful parliamentary speakers. He can make us think and laugh, and he holds every audience in thrall. He has a clear enemy and he goes on and on. Sadly, the President of Cuba has announced his retirement, but the deputy maximum leader will continue condemning Europe and making us laugh despite being, like the maximum leader in Havana, utterly wrong.
	The treaty contains something quite different from the constitution, which a former shadow Foreign Secretary declared dead. Every other Government in Europe have declared the two things not to be the same. That is why the pledge offered during the 2005 election is null and void. People may, by all means, make the argument for a referendumthe right hon. Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) certainly was not making such an argument 10 years ago when he was a Minister and sternly against referendumsbut they should do so by being honest and saying that the Conservative party has adopted the position of my former right hon. Friend Mr. Tony Benn that referendums should settle Britain's international treaty obligations. I do not think that that is the right way forward.
	This debate is about defence. I very much agreed when the Chairman of the Defence Committee said that Europe should get its defence act together, but we should be careful before patronising all the other countries of Europe. Many funerals have taken place in the past two or three years as a result of events in Iraq, Afghanistan and other parts of the world. As has happened in families in this country, men and women have grieved for people who died trying to protect our common security. I wish that there was more commitment, but it will not be secured unless there is engagement in Europe. The trouble for our country, which we are proud to represent, is that we walk with one hand tied behind our backs in Europe, because the Conservative party has entered into the most rejectionist, isolationist position on partnership in Europe of any party in the history of this country and of any other party except the extreme fringe elsewhere in Europe.
	Reference has been made to the remarkable article by Caroline Jackson, the Conservative Member of the European Parliament, published in the  Financial Times on 18 February. It stated:
	What continental politicians cannot understand is why one of the major parties of Europe should walk out of the broad church of their present group...Conservatives are getting a reputation for bad manners towards their continental allies. Recently, Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP, likened the European Parliament's German Christian Democrat president to Adolf Hitler...in the Council of Europe, Conservative MPs sit in a politically mixed group, chaired by a Russian MP from Vladimir Putin's party.
	The shadow Foreign Minister tried to wriggle his way out of that problem by citing my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). Had the right hon. Gentleman been with me in Washington on Sunday he would have heard Mr. Edward Lucas of  The Economist promoting his new book The new cold war. He denounced the Conservative indifference to co-operation and partnership in Europe, saying that it was a national disgrace that the Conservative party, far from standing up to Russia's bullying, was colluding to ensure that the Russian henchman of Mr. Putin became President of the Council of Europe. Had the right hon. Gentleman been there, he might have paused to think.
	That is the difference. Tonight, I hope that we will again vote to ratify part of the treaty. The Conservative party will remain isolated, and isolated it does nothing but damage to Britain's national interests.

Liam Fox: My hon. Friend makes an important point. In today's debate, several elements have been mentioned that are not themselves problemssuch as the EU's operations as a delivery mechanism of NATO under Berlin-plus, or the example of what has happened in humanitarian missions. None of those is a problem in itself. The problem is the incremental nature of what is happening and the creeping competence of the Commission and the EU structures in all those areas, which gradually erode our ability to be masters of our own destiny. That is what is so unacceptable in the treaty.
	The EDA offers the UK no tactical, strategic or technological advantage that NATO, bilateral or multilateral agreements, or the UK defence industrial base do not already provide. The idea of a joint market for defence equipment is all now featuring largely at EU level, with the Commission pushing for a deal that could secure more efficient spending among all the bloc's member states. Internal market rules are not currently applied to the defence market, allowing member states to exclude defence contracts from EU procurement rules. Moreover, national licensing procedures make the transfer of defence material between countries difficult.
	According to the Commission, a common defence market would significantly improve the military capabilities of member states magically without increasing defence expenditures. That is nonsense and it is in the same accounting league as double-hatting troops and pretending that that creates greater capability. All the measure does is to increase Commission competence in an area where it has no business to be, as my right hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hampshire (Mr. Arbuthnot) pointed out in his excellent speech.
	The Government claim to share our affinity for NATO and they claim the treaty will not undermine it, but that is not what they said before. During the 2003 European Convention, the Government were opposed to many aspects of the Treaty that they have now accepted. In fact, permanent structured co-operation and the mutual defence commitment are two sections of the text that the Government wanted completely totally deleted from the treaty.
	On the mutual defence clause, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain) said in 2003:
	Common defence, including as a form of enhanced co-operation, is divisive and a duplication of the guarantees that 19 of the 25
	member states
	of the enlarged EU will enjoy through NATO.
	So why the change of heart? On permanent structured co-operation, the Government said during 2003:
	the UK has made clear that it cannot accept the proposed ESDP reinforced cooperation provisions.
	However, they have now caved in to European pressure and accepted permanent structured co-operation in the Lisbon treaty. It is nothing but integration in defence common policy by stealth.
	Our suspicions have been reinforced by the noises coming out of Paris in recent days. The defence spokesman for the UMPthe Union pour un Mouvement Populaire partyPierre Lellouche made it clear that France will push the limits of permanent structured co-operation to the maximum and create a six-nation hard core of EU members who want to further EU defence integration and a common procurement market for defence, and ultimately to establish an EU pillar in NATO. That is absolutely unacceptable.
	At the Munich conference on security policy last week, the French Defence Minister Herv Morin said that NATO was primarily a defence organisation and should not operate as a global policeman. He said that that was the role of the United Nations, and added that the EU must not simply become the civilian arm of NATO. To use new Labour-speak, that is a very clear direction of travel. I expect that, unlike France, the Government will publicly support using permanent structured co-operation in that way only after the treaty's full ratification. That is no doubt yet another reason why the Prime Minister wants to avoid the public scrutiny of a referendum in this country.
	We should welcome France into the integrated command structure, but not with an EU pillar of NATO as a quid pro quo. Integration ought to mean removing NATO duplication and to continue to operate under the Berlin-plus arrangement that has worked so well in the past. Under those conditions, we could easily sort out the potential problems we have with the French position.
	With their support for the Treaty, as with so many other things, the Government are heading down the wrong path when it comes to Britain's security. With the threat of global terrorism, problems with energy security and a resurgent Russia the stakes are too high for some of the policy gambles that are being taken today. However, at least the Government have the advantage of clarity, which is more than we can say for the Lib Dems. First, they could not agree to agree. Then they could not agree to disagree. Now they praise constructive abstention, but it may not be unanimousin other words, they cannot even agree not to have an opinion on the subject. These decisions are far too important for the current Liberal Democrat leader's frivolous whipping arrangements and lack of authority.
	I have spent 15 years in this House of Commons being told that every EU treaty put in front of us was more benign than it seemed and that there was therefore nothing to worry about. Enough is enough. The Lisbon treaty threatens to undermine the defence assumptions that our nation has had for 60 years, and to drive a wedge between us and our transatlantic allies. Britain cannot have two best friends when it comes to defence. The treaty asks us to make a choice, but the Conservative party will not support the weakening of our transatlantic bonds.
	We want the EU to work in partnership with NATO, not compete with it. The provisions of the treaty move in the wrong directionfor Britain, for the EU and for NATO. That is why we oppose them.

Jim Murphy: Britain is much more able to exert influence on Zimbabwe when we work with 26 other member states. The sanctions imposed by the EU against the Zimbabwean regime are stronger than the UN's. I understand that the hon. Lady would like to leave the EU altogether, so the logical conclusion of her approach is that she must extend her criticism to every international institution.
	As a member of the EU, Britain is in a position to shape the agenda, although of course I accept that we have not yet been able to deliver on that in the way we would want. However, the fact that we have not been able to bring about the change in Zimbabwe that we all want is no reason for us to give up altogether and lose the possibility of having any influence at all through the EU, yet that is what the hon. Lady advocates with her fight against what she calls the European project.
	The EU continues to play a crucial role in arenas other than Zimbabwe. I agreed with the vast majority of the speech made by the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington and Chelsea (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), although we must agree to disagree about the EU's role in what is happening in the Balkans. I consider it to have been deeply constructive, both in ensuring that the leadership in Kosovo protect the rights of the Serb minority and in ensuring that the Serbs see a European future for themselves. The EU has helped to influence the behaviour and attitude of Serbia's authorities, political parties and civic society in an important way. It did the same during last year's elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
	In addition, Britain has had the support of our EU partners in our recent bilateral disagreements with Russia. All hon. Members should accept that our relationship with Russian and our influence in that country are much stronger when we speak as one of 27 voices that share the same message. The Opposition seem to demand more European action, tougher European words and greater European input in the relationship with Russia, but today they oppose the means by which we can achieve that. They have done the same over recent months, and I suspect that, unfortunately, they will continue to do so into the future.
	I give way to the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), who chairs the all-party Russia group.

Mark Pritchard: I was not asking the Minister to give way, but he has kindly offered. The position as regards Russia does not underscore his point; it undermines it. There is a complete difference of opinion across the European Union in regard to Russia, particularly on energy security and, as far as topical debates are concerned, in relation to Serbia and Kosovo, and indeed the Balkans as a whole.

Jim Murphy: I will happily give way again to the hon. Lady if she wishes. I was actually quoting the Maastricht treaty. I did not write it; the hon. Lady's party took it through Parliament when it was in government.  [Interruption.] I know that. The shadow Defence Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary both supported the treaty text that I have just shared with the House.

Desmond Swayne: My hon. Friend will recall that when the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Blackburn (Mr. Straw), came to give a rather phlegmatic explanation of why the Government had reversed their position from opposing a referendum to favouring one, he said that it was because there was going to be a permanent president of the Council. It was clearly a matter of importance to him.

Mark Francois: My right hon. Friend's point is well made. He mentioned a common position. If it is true that Tony Blair is going to apply for the job, I would be interested to know whether there would be a common position in the Labour party on whether he ought to get it. We await the answer to that question with genuine anticipation.
	Amendments Nos. 262 and 263 deal with the new EU diplomatic service and, in particular, with the high representative's authority over it. The external action serviceto give it its technical nameis a new institution in the treaty whose role has yet to be determined. Indeed, a leaked note from the Slovenian presidency makes that explicit. The Government are again asking the House and this country to sign a blank cheque. The post of high representative is a powerful one in itself, but with the diplomatic service at his beck and call, we should be in no doubt that the EU would tend not to supplement member states' foreign policy so much as try to supplant it. Our amendments seek to address that possibility.
	Amendment No. 1 is also important because it seeks to amend the crucial clause relating to the high representative's right to speak for the European Union at the United Nations Security Council when a common position is reached. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks said at the beginning of our earlier debate, its provisionswith a superficial change to the Foreign Minister's job titleare identical to those in the EU constitution. As such, they were repeatedly and publicly opposed by the Government's representatives in the negotiations on that document. As they put it at that time:
	The UK cannot accept any language which implies that it would not retain the right to speak in a national capacity on the UN Security Council.
	Yet that is exactly what the Government have agreed to, the change having won the satisfied approval of the wise, eminent and noble Lord Malloch-Brown.

Mark Francois: I should like to get on to amendment No. 264, but I will give way in a moment.
	Amendment No. 264 relates to the role and powers of the EU's high representative, which are identical to those of the Foreign Minister proposed in the original EU constitutiona point that the Foreign Secretary failed to address in his speech a few hours ago. I remind the House that the post was one of two crucial aspects of the treaty, along with the new EU president, that the former Foreign Secretarythe present Lord Chancelloridentified as essential to the last proposed treaty's constitutionality, thus providing the need for a referendum. I told my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) that he had anticipated my making this point; it is definitely a point that is worth reiterating. A senior member of this Government's Cabinet has said that if this provision was in the treaty, we deserved a referendum. Well, it most certainly is, so what has happened to the referendum that we were promised? On that point, I shall gladly give way to the Liberal Democrats, who, as of today, have not got a clue whether they want a referendum or not.

James Clappison: Is not the assumption of the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) wrong when he says that the UK will have agreed to the position? Is it not a fact that, like it or not, the treaty provisions open the door for qualified majority voting under article 32 [Interruption.] Read it, if anyone does not believe me. It opens the door for QMV now and even more QMV in the future as a result of the special passerelle clause. That means that the EU would speak for this country on the Security Council, even if this country disagreed with the stated policy.

William Cash: Does my hon. Friend agree that when a Foreign Minister walks like a duck, he talks like a duck and he is a duckand that in this particular context, it is the high representative who is doing it? Does my hon. Friend recall when Javier Solana said on Radio 4 that he was meeting Hamas at a very crucial momenton the back of existing arrangements that were not then authorised? Is that not the sort of evolving, dynamic and dangerous situation that my hon. Friend is identifying and is exactly what will happen in practice? It is not just a matter of drawing strict legal lines; it is a question of how the whole system will function in practice. That is the larger problem that we are concerned about.

Mark Francois: I will give way in a moment. Clearly the Government cannot sweep this under the carpet. I repeat: if there is nothing to worry about, why did the Government object so vehemently?
	I will now give way to the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. I thank him for his patience.?

Mike Gapes: The hon. Gentleman has missed the point. Let me give an example. The German presidency decided to give great emphasis in its presidency document to work in central Asia. That was not the position in the previous presidency and it was not continued afterwards. The Portuguese presidency has taken up something in the British presidency's remitthe priority of Africabut there was a gap in between. We thus need the coherence of the longer-term approach, which is more efficient and more effective. The six-monthly rotation includes the small countries that have very small diplomatic representations. Slovenia has only one embassy in Africa and it uses the French diplomatic service, as it must, for many of its functions as part of its presidency of the European Union. That is absurd.

Doug Henderson: I refer to amendments Nos. 1 and 258. I am slightly unfamiliar with Committee stage discussions these days, and I am not sure whether the Opposition intend their amendments as probing amendments or whether they have a more serious purpose. Perhaps the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) could clarify that.
	I am not sure whether amendment No. 258 deletes the concept of a president of the Council from the treaty or whether it prevents a president of the Council from having a view on external affairs. I suspect that it deletes any reference to the president, which implies that the current situation would continue, whereby there are potentially three different spokespeople for the European Union on external affairs matters.
	Those who have been in regular contact with the European Union know that the current position is untenable with 27 members. With six members of the original Community it may have been possible, as the presidency came round every three years and there could be some degree of continuity. With 27 members it becomes almost impossible to conduct business in the long term. Particularly in relations with outside bodies and other international bodies, there is a need for administrative consistency so that people know who they are speaking to, what kind of person they are and whether they can trust them. That is crucial in international negotiations, which is why a presidency is needed.
	That brings me back to the question whether the amendment was intended as a probing amendment. Was it meant to probe whether the presidency would be like the President of the United States? Clearly, that is not the case. The president of the European Council would have very limited powers and would have to be extremely careful to stick closely to the mandate that that person was given. There would not be a huge amount of discretion, if I anticipate correctly the future relationship between the president and the Council. That may be a point that Tony Blair is examining. I do not know whether he is a candidate or not, but he would be wise to work out what the job description was if he wanted to put his hat in the ring.
	On amendment No. 1, there is a myth that must be killed off. There are many legitimate and credible reasons to argue against the treaty and the foreign affairs and defence aspects of it, but the idea that it will in any way deny Britain access to the United Nations at the Security Council, the Assembly or any of the intermediary committees is just not realistic. The president will be there to represent a common position of the European Union in whatever is being discussed. If there is no common position, the president will not be there; the president could not be there unless originally there was unanimityor, as my European friends say, consensuson the issue under consideration.

Doug Henderson: I do not understand the right hon. Gentleman's point. The European position will be stated if there is one. If any nation wanted to reinforce it, they could do so. If there was no European position, any nation that wished to express a view could do so. That is the framework.

Doug Henderson: The right hon. Gentleman and I go back a long way on these matters. He knows about some of the issues. I would have thought that he would recognise that if there is a common European position, it will be more influential in UN committees if it is put forward as such, and not by the French or British or whoever happened to have the presidency in a 27-unit cycle. In the larger committees, the position would be far more effective coming from the European presidencynormally from the president himself. That would not prevent any other nation making a point if it wished to. If there were no common position, any nation wishing to make a point could do so. We cannot get away from that; that is the position of the UN. It will not change its constitution to accommodate the EU or its member nations. The Conservatives need to have another look at the issue.
	The right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) raised a point in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes); he said that it was better to have a British than a European position. That is a matter of horses for courses. In some circumstancesfor example, the situation in the Congo or Chad in respect of external affairsit is better for Britain to express its view alone, knowing that it does not have to have a lead-nation role, but that it can still very much influence the direction of the EU. In other situations, however, Britain would have a direct role. For instance, because of our history we have a closer and deeper interest in the diplomatic discussions on Zimbabwe than some other European Union countries. It is a matter of considering the issues and dealing with them as they come forward.

Kenneth Clarke: The amendments bear on the common foreign and security policy, which I have always supported as an aspect of the European Union; it is very much in British interests that it should develop further. So I look at the amendments and ask whether they will enable us to make better progress than we have made already in developing a common foreign and security policy on issues for which it is in British interests to do so. Those are issues on which our interests coincide with those of other member states and on which we can reach unanimous positions on matters of great importance to us all. In the earlier debate, Members referred to our relationships with the Russian Federation. I can think of no more important area where the European Union should make faster progress towards having a coherent common foreign policy that enables us to establish good, but proper, relationships with the very important superpower that is almost a near neighbour of ours to the east.
	The structure on which the amendments bear is fairly long-standing. There is no great substantial change in this treaty from the Maastricht treaty, which we debated at considerable length in the past. Unfortunately, I was divided then from some of the colleagues who are present now, who still do not agree with me. A lot of these arguments are extremely familiar. At that time, we debated amendments claiming that the proposals would be the end of British foreign policy, that we would be handing over to a new European superpower, that we would lose all our power to represent ourselves abroad, and so on. None of that ever happened. Unfortunately, since the Thatcher Government led on the whole idea of a common foreign and security policy and the Major Government supported that, we have not gone far enough in the direction towards what we needa union of nation states collectively being able effectively to put into practice representations on their mutual behalf in the areas that matter to them.
	I agree with, and will not repeat at length, the arguments in favour of a single presidency for a period and an end to the rotating presidency. I am surprised that my party has tabled amendments challenging the idea of the new presidency. The Conservative party was always unanimous on the question of enlarging the Unionapart from my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood); I am sorry that I have attributed to him a moment of deviation from his very firm position on these matters. Certainly, the official policy was all in favour of enlargement. Indeed, most of us view it as a triumph that the Union has succeeded in enlarging and taking democratic and liberal values across into central and eastern Europe. I always gained the impression that it was assumed that once we had enlargement, certain treaty amendments would be required, including getting rid of the rotating presidency. I will not labour the argument, but the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) was entirely correct in what he said.
	There are two arguments about the presidency that must be refuted: first, that it is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) suggested, a tremendously powerful position that could eventually, over time, rival the presidency of the United States as a position in world affairs. I have to tell my hon. Friend that I do not see how that can be seriously argued while keeping a straight face. One thing that is retained in this treaty is the idea of unanimity in forming foreign policyunanimity, that is, of Ministers in the Council of Ministers, each of whom comes from their democratically elected Government in each member state and is individually answerable to his Parliament and the electorate to whom his Government answer. The president will represent the Union once a common policy has been arrived at, and only then. The president of the European Council of Ministersthat is the best way of describing him, rather than the president of Europewill not be the commander-in-chief of the forces of Europe. When we discuss later amendments, we will no doubt hear the old Maastricht stuff about European armies and so on, which have always been phantoms. The president will not have any policy-making powerthat will reside with the Ministers drawn from the member states, and his duty is to represent a common position when they have arrived at it.
	Secondly, it is argued that the presidency will somehow threaten our position in the United Nations. Again, I will not labour the arguments that have already been made, other than to say that we are continuing a practice that has already become well established, and that has not yet happened. The fact that the president of the Council can sometimes go to address the United Nations does not mean that the United Kingdom will lose its place on the UN Security Council, any more than the French will. I strongly believe that the British should retain their position on the Security Council for as long as possible. We are a very valuable influence there, and it is obviously in our interest that we stay there.
	We have had difficulty in maintaining that presence in modern times because the permanent members of the present Security Council were the victorious allies in the second world war. As the world steadily changes, that situation is getting quite difficult to defend. It is not the best defence of the British position to say that we will rely on that historical case, or even to bar the quite harmless practice, which has become quite well established, of the president of the European Council addressing the Security Council when there is a common position.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham, with his usual sensitivity to the political world of Europe, says that the other 25 countries should put up with being represented by either the British or the French. He asks why there is a need for the European president to be able to turn up and put their views. Quite apart from the generally undiplomatic nature of that suggestion, such an approach is not the best way of defending the United Kingdom's seat on the UN Security Council in the longer term. With the greatest respect to my right hon. Friend, such near xenophobia about the desire of other powerful countries to be able to put forward a collective European view in the UN will simply arouse more pressure for reform, and most proposals for reform suggest that there should not be so many European countries individually represented on the Security Council. I resist that view, but we have to be sensible and flexible, and we should not raise such extraordinary fears about what has been a successful practice since Maastricht.
	I know that others want to go on to the subject of the European army, so I shall conclude by relating something to my hon. Friends in a way that is in order. These debates, which I have attended quite regularly, largely seem to involve an extraordinary series of exchanges about what the treaty means. In my opinion, although I respect the views of my colleagues, there has been an attempt to extract from the wording of the treaty extraordinary meanings that I simply cannot see there. It is exactly like Maastricht. Everybody said that similar things would happen after Maastricht. We debated it at interminable length then because we were not confined by such a dreadful timetable as we are nowdespite our best efforts to get one.  [ Laughter. ] All those fears were raised, none of them were realised, and now everyone is coming back to say exactly the same thing.

Kenneth Clarke: I am sorry, Mrs. Heal. I shall therefore not rehearse my claim that I understood the Maastricht treaty and knew more about it than the Maastricht rebels at the time. I shall leave that for another occasion. The canard has been repeated, and will one day be properly put to rest.
	If today's debate includes assertions about the president of the European Council of Ministers becoming like the President of the United States, our loss of our seat on the Security Council, a loss of our ability to have an independent foreign policy, andin a few momentsour Army being subordinated to a European army, I cannot see how a referendum can be sensibly conducted. My opposition to a referendum is the same as that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer). The effect of this process on the public is bewildering. People say that they do not understand the treaty, and having listened to this debate, I am hardly surprised. There is not even the faintest agreement among Members about what the treaty means.
	I am afraid my response to the amendments is that they raise fanciful fears, no doubt genuinely held by my hon. and right hon. Friends, that are based on an interpretation of the language of the treaty that it simply will not bear. For that reason, I continue to hold the views I did when we debated Maastricht. I will vote against any of the amendments that are pressed, and I will try to persuade my constituents that the fears raised in support of the amendments are delusions. The experience of our membership of the European Union so far, particularly since Maastricht, has shown that they were delusions then and they are delusions now. They do not reflect the way that anyone sensible in the EU, in any member state, intends to travel in future.

Rob Marris: Like many others, I want to discuss amendments Nos. 258 and 1. I do not know whether those who tabled amendment No. 258 intended it to be a probing amendment or whether they wish to press it to a Division, but they have overblown the consolidated text resulting from the treaty. Article 15(6) states:
	The President of the European Council shall, at his or her level and in that capacity, ensure the external representation of the Union on issues concerning its common foreign and security policy, without prejudice to the powers of the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
	Those in the Chamber could hear the inflexion of my voice, so for the benefit of  Hansard, I point out that I stressed the word common. The president of the European Council will be involved in the common foreign and security policy and
	ensure the external representation of the Union.
	Other hon. Members may interpret that wording differently, but to me, ensuring the external representation does not mean being the external representative. That interpretation is confirmed when the article goes on to refer specifically to the high representative of the Union for foreign affairs and security policy.
	The president of the European Council will be elected by the European Council, which can finish the term of office before the end of the two and a half years in
	the event of an impediment or serious misconduct.
	I am not sure what impediment means, but in lay terms, I think it means that someone who is naughty or falls out with their mates is voted out. The Heads of State and Heads of Government of the 27 member states will vote the president out in those circumstances. The president of the European Council is therefore on some sort of leash, albeit that it depends on the interpretation of impediment or serious misconduct.
	The president will not make foreign and security policy for the European Union; the European Council will do that, and it will be a common foreign and security policy. I stand to be corrected, but I understand that that would be done by unanimity; that is where the word common comes in. If the United Kingdom took a fundamentally different position on an issue of interest to the European Union, such as on Zimbabwe, which my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North (Mr. Henderson) mentioned, there would be no common foreign policy and the UK could properly pursue its own path.

Rob Marris: Strictly speaking, the high representative would have to do that. In practice, he or she would make matters clear to his or her interlocutors. I do not expect the European Union to fall out over Zimbabwe, but let us take it as an example. If 26 member states took one position and the UK took another, the high representative would have to say, My hands are tied. I am the high representative for a common foreign policy and, as I've indicated to you, my interlocutor, there is no common foreign policy because one member state doesn't agree with the others. That is what a common foreign policy means. As I said in an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, North, in such circumstances, standing up for what we believe in as a single country would not put the UK in a weaker position than we would have occupied if we had never joined the Common Market and then the European Union.
	Before we joined the Common Market in those termswe were, of course, in the European Free Trade Association, but in foreign policy we were aloneif we were in a minority of one on what would otherwise be a common foreign policy of the European Union, we would again be on our own, so we would not be in a weaker position. However, we would potentially be in a much stronger position if 27 member states were taking their lead from the United Kingdom on, for example, Zimbabwe, which is a more likely scenario, but not a definite one, because of our history with that country and our knowledge of it, as has been mentioned. On the one hand, we might be alone, which is not a weaker position than we would have been in, were we not involved. On the other hand, the upside is that we could be in a considerably stronger position. That seems to me a pretty good each-way bet.

Rob Marris: I do not want to get diverted too far down that path, but the right hon. Gentleman is not quite right. The five permanent Security Council members are in fact the original declared nuclear powers. That is where it comes from.
	Canada, for examplea country of which I am a citizen and for which I have a great deal of affectionwas one of the victors in the second world war. It has a long and proud history of contributing to UN security forces throughout the world; indeed, it argues with some justification that it has the proudest history, in terms of proportional contributions. In fact, the Canadian losses in Afghanistan per capita are far higher than the United Kingdom's. However, Canada is not a permanent member of the UN Security Council and, as far I know, neither Mike Pearson nor anyone else ever suggested that it should be. However, as I was saying, we are in the strange and historically anomalous position of having two countries of 60 million peoplethe United Kingdom and Francethat are permanent members of the Security Council, whereas India, which has a population of 1.1 billion or whatever it is today, is not a permanent member. Membership comes from history, and that history is being questioned, not least by countries such as India, quite understandably.
	If we wish the United Kingdom to remain a member of the UN Security Council, as I am sure all hon. Members would wish, we have to look at how we interact with it. The changes brought about by the treaty include reinforcing the way in which the United Kingdom, as a member of the European Union and a permanent member of the UN Security Council, interacts with the United Nations, at both the General Assembly and the Security Council level. The treaty and the changes that it would effect are helpful, in respect of preserving this country's position as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Paragraph 2 of article 34, on page 25 of the consolidated text, says:
	Member States which are also members of the United Nations Security Council will concert and keep the other Member States and the High Representative fully informed. Member States which are members of the Security Council will, in the execution of their functions, defend the positions and the interests of the Union, without prejudice to their responsibilities under the provisions of the United Nations Charter.
	When the Union has defined a position on a subject which is on the United Nations Security Council agenda, those Member States which sit on the Security Council shall request that the High Representative be invited to present the Union's position.
	I think that that strengthens the position, principally of the United Kingdom and France, althoughagain, I stand to be correctedat a given time, another EU member state could be a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, so the EU, with 27 member states and a population of about 400 million people, might have three members of the Security Council, two permanent and one elected on rotation.
	The EU is a body of 400 million people, so it seems to me reasonable for the high representative to be invited to the UN. The member states, under the treaty, would be beholden to request that the high representative be invited to present the Union's positionagain, if there were a Union common position. If there is no common position, quite properly and in the interests of our country, our position could be presented to the Security Council, of which we are a permanent member.
	The provisions of the treaty seem to me an each-way bet. We might be alone at the UN Security Councilthere would be no change there, then, if we had never been in the Common Market and in the EUbut we might not be alone; we might have the strength of being able to say that, at the UN Security Council, we have a common foreign policy on a particular issue, which might be Darfur or whatever, and that it is supported by the UK. Perforce that common position would be supported at the UN by France, which is an EU member state. Another EU member state might also be present as a rotating member of the Security Council.

Rob Marris: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. That issue is to do with expertise, but also many hands make light work. We should get more hands on the pump.
	If a delicate issue was being considered by the Security Council and if it was clear that the EU had a common position, as evidenced by the fact that the member states that were members of the Security Council at the time were asking for the high representative to be invited, and if that invitation were extended and the high representative attended, other UN member states around the world would know of the solidity of the common position of the EU, of which we are a member. Therefore, our bargaining power would, in a sense, be given leverage, and the treaty helps in that respect.
	The proposal is an each-way bet, as I have termed it. That is why I oppose amendments Nos. 258 and 1. They would strip out things that are advantageous to us. Were we to strip out those things, there would be a serious downside, whereas if we leave them in there will be an upside but no downside.

David Heathcoat-Amory: I shall be as brief as I can, because I hope that the Committee gets on to the other groups of amendments. It is one of the major scandals of this entire procedure that not only does the Committee not have the opportunity to go through the treaty line by line, but that often, owing to the short time allotted, we do not even have an opportunity to debate whole groups of amendments. That is particularly important given the significance of the subject before us tonight.
	This policy area contains some of the worst drafting, and it is one in which the Government sustained some of the heaviest defeats in the negotiations leading up to the drafting of the text. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), who spoke before me from this side of the Chamber, put the most optimistic complexion on the treaty provisions. I disagree with him, but we have always managed to conduct our disagreements at a fairly genial level. In this case, however, he is at variance with the Government's position. We know that the Government do not like the text, so we have the odd situation whereby my right hon. and learned Friend is defending a text which was rejected by the Government. We know that because of the many amendments that the Government tabled during the Convention on the Future of Europe.
	I had the honour of representing this House and I witnessed the Government's then representative, the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), tabling and speaking to scores of amendments, very few of which were successful. It is difficult for hon. Members and this Committee to find out exactly what those amendments were; we have to trawl through a Commission website. There is no consolidated version of those amendments, but they do exist and I have a copy. There is no doubt that the Government talked tough in advance about their position, but caved in under pressure; they were not successful in amending the text and are now making the best of a bad job.
	The problems were compounded by the procedures in the first half of last year when, following the defeat of the constitution, it was resurrected by the German presidency and the resulting negotiations did not even take place in public. At least in the Convention on the Future of Europe, there was parliamentary and public input; in the early part of last year, the negotiations were conducted entirely by officials in secret. Member states were shown the text only 48 hours before it was all agreed in the June European Council. That is one of the reasons why we have a treaty that is virtually incomprehensible. My right hon. and learned Friend said it would be inappropriate now to put the treaty to a referendum because no one would understand it, but the reason no one can understand it is that it was negotiated by officials, without any parliamentary or public involvement. There being no obligation to make it comprehensible, of course we have a text that is ambiguous, contradictory and misleading. The situation has not been helped by the partial and selective way in which Ministers have presented the outcome to this House.
	Our amendments are designed to reinstate the position that the Government wanted during the early negotiations, or at least to make the treaty better. Earlier today, we heard a lot from the Foreign Secretary about the role of the European Council and how that will now be the intergovernmental body that will direct, at least strategically, common foreign and security policy. It is true that the European Council's role has been enhanced to some extent, but the treaty does not strengthen the intergovernmental nature of the process. Instead of being led by a serving Head of Government of a member state, the Council is now to have a full-time, permanent president who will be supranational.
	What we have done in the treaty is create more presidentsthat is really what happened during the Convention. Not only are we to have a full-time president of the European Council, but we will still have a President of the Council of Ministersin some respects, that role will continue to circulate among member statesas well as the President of the Commission, the President of the European Parliament, the President of the European Court of Justice, the President of the European Central Bank and the President of the European Court of Auditors. We have a Europe of presidents, but what we were seeking in the Convention was a popular Europea Europe for the people. That was the instruction given to those involved in the reform process, and we failed. If one adds together all the presidents and the vice-presidents enumerated in the treaty, one has something that is even more remote from the lives and concerns of ordinary people.
	Of course, what we did not know at the time was that the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was actually writing his own job description. However, to repeat a point that has already been made this evening, he might have looked a little more deeply into exactly what the job entails. One of the conclusions of the European Scrutiny Committee was that there are ambiguities surrounding all the jobs of most of these presidents. The search for clarity and certainty in the text has failed.
	Another defect has been identified. If we are to have a more powerful, strategic European Council, why are its proceedings still to take place in secret, with no written minutes of any kind? This was the subject of a recent report by the European Scrutiny Committee, which rightly pointed out:
	The Conclusions of the European Council have an important influencesometimes, a decisive oneon the future of the EU and the 500 million people who live in it.
	The Committee points out that no one knows what goes on. There is apparently a recording of the proceedings, although that was denied by the previous Foreign Secretary. It was confirmed, however, by Sir Stephen Wall, who was an ambassador to the EU. If there is an accurate recording, though, it is certainly not presented to Parliament or to the outside world.
	The Committee recommended that
	the Government discuss with other Member States the options for improving the process and removing its present inefficiencies and eccentricities; and, in particular, whether a clear, definitive and accessible record of the proceedings of the European Council should be made as a matter of course.
	I strongly agree with that. If we are to have a supreme decision-making body that is going to set the strategic direction of the foreign policy of 27 member states, we are entitled to know what it is discussing, and who agrees and disagrees when a vote is taken. We need to know what is going on. All we have at the moment are the conclusions, which are circulated before the European Council meets but are never discussed as minutes. A statement is made to the House by the Prime Minister afterwards to tell us what has happened, but there is no clear, definitive record of what actually took place.
	If the treaty goes through, this provision will have big implications for the democratic right of this House to scrutinise foreign policy. There is nothing in the treaty to reform those secretive proceedings. Amendments were tabled in the Convention to correct that, but there was no appetite for such reform. There was a desire to keep these matters at European Union level, deliberately to avoid the tiresome habit of member states' Parliaments inquiring exactly what their Ministers are doing on their behalf.
	We can add to that the fact that there is confusion over the roles of the president of the European Council and of the high representative. It has been mentioned several times today that the high representative will be entitled to speak at the United Nations on behalf of the European Union when there is a common position. This is not what the United Kingdom Government wanted at the time, however. The Minister who is going to respond to the debate does not appear to be in the Chamber at the moment, but if he would kindly return before the debate concludes, I should like to ask him whether it is still the Government's position that the obligation on permanent members to request the high representative to speak on our behalf contradicts the rules of procedure of the United Nations. We are entitled to an opinion on that. That is certainly what was asserted at the Convention on the Future of Europe, and it would be wrong to write into a treaty something that conflicts with the rules of procedure of an international organisation of which we are a member.
	The Foreign Affairs Committee carried out a comprehensive study of the roles of these various posts, and concluded that it was
	concerned by the current degree of uncertainty which surrounds the role
	that is, that of the president of the European Council
	and by the potential for conflict with the High Representative in representing the EU externally.
	We are being invited to agree to a textthe Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who I see in his place, did not mention this in his very good reportwhen we are entitled to an explanation of whether the Government believe that these ambiguities have been sorted out before we pass the Bill.
	The high representative will have at his disposal not just what amounts in most respects to a foreign ministrythough it is to be called an external action servicebut more than 100 delegations, which to all intents and purposes are embassies. It has been calculated that more than 7,000 members of staff are working for these overseas delegations and for the Commission in Brussels on foreign and security policy and external matters. It is certainly clear to me that the new high representative's staff and the ministry at his disposal, as well as the overseas delegations, will be heavily dominated by the Commission. Yet the exact role of the Commission is another ambiguity in the treaty, so one of my amendments is designed to remove from it the quite unnecessary confusion over whether the high representative or the Commission can table proposals on foreign policy matters.
	The Commission's role is further enhanced by the fact that the high representative will also be a vice-president of the Commission. Such double-hatting was a matter brought up in the Convention and subsequently as something that the Government did not want. In trying to clarify and simplify the roles of EU institutions, it makes no sense to leave such ambiguities in the text.
	Another problem relating to the Commission's role and how it will interact with that of the high representative is the fact that the European Council and its president will have to practise mutual sincere cooperation with the Commission, as written into the text in article 9. If the UK or any other state seeks to assert its independence in foreign policy, it will run up against the problem that the European Councilthe decision-making bodyand its president will be obliged mutually to co-operate not with member states or the UK but with the Commission. I find that to be a distortiononce again, the Government did not like it in the negotiationsand it should have been removed.
	The melancholy fact remains that, regardless of the text, the momentum and the internal dynamic of the EU will sweep away the Government's red line defences in any case. The clearest example of that are the numerous loyalty and solidarity clauses in the text. Even if we manage to take out some of the specifics through the amendments, we are still left with member states' obligation to seek an ever-increasing degree of convergence of their actions, as in article 11. That is an echo of the existing treaty obligation for member states to seek ever closer union. At great political cost, the Government managed to get some of that taken out of the existing text, only for it to re-emerge in the new form of seeking an increasing degree of convergence in foreign policy.
	Moreover, it is the high representative who will have a new power to ensure compliance with the obligationagain, a new obligationfor member states to support the European Union action. If there is a change of Government after a general election and the new Government seek to take a new angle on foreign policy and form some new alliances, they will not be able to do so if the policy is the subject of a pre-existing position to which the previous Government signed up.

Hon. Members: They do provide otherwise.

David Heathcoat-Amory: My hon. Friend the Member for North Essex (Mr. Jenkin) will probably try to find the exact point in the text.

David Heathcoat-Amory: That was a good answer from my hon. Friend. It is true that a new provision in the texts extends qualified majority voting if the European Council, acting on the basis of unanimity, requests a proposal from the high representative. Once that request has been made qualified majority voting applies, even when the proposals are not implementing measures. That is a significant advance in qualified majority voting.
	Let me end by referring to a solidarity clause that I do not think has been sufficiently ventilated. It gives the European Union the ability to require member states to make available military resources to prevent a terrorist attack. Hon. Members who wish to look it up will find the reference in article 188R, which is a new provision in the treaty. As far as I can tell, it is judiciable by the European Court of Justice. In other words, there is no voluntary spirit involved. If a request is made, member states, including Britain, would have to give military assistance or make military assets available. That would be done not in response to an actual attack, but possibly to prevent a terrorist attack. That is a significant extension of European Union power and a restriction on the freedom of action of all member states. How it can be asserted that British independence of thought, policy and action is uninhibited by this treaty is mystifying.
	Perhaps the best demonstration of that point is the fact that, yet again, the provision was opposed by the Government in the negotiations. I hope that the Minister for Europe, who has now returned to his place, will spend less time arguing against amendments that the Government promoted at an earlier stage of the negotiations. Instead, I hope he will start to find the spirit that the Government at least partly found during the Conventionstanding up for British interests in complex negotiations, although there was a failed outcome.
	My amendments and those of my hon. Friends will help to rescue this treaty from where it has ended up, although they will not do so comprehensively because of the solidarity and loyalty clauses, which have an overarching effect. In my view, they will erode British independence in foreign policy to the stage where we will become exclusively a continental power, whereas we are partly continental and partly what General de Gaulle called maritime. We must retain the ability to choose in foreign policy. Sometimes we have chosen the continentsometimes we have had to rescue the continentbut at other times we have chosen a global role, a maritime role and a role that perhaps associates us more closely with the Anglosphere. If the treaty and these provisions go through in their current form, that choice and destiny will be denied us.

Mark Lazarowicz: The right hon. Gentleman's contribution, with respect, seems to exemplify the type of approach that the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) described, whereby the Conservative Front-Bench team and the majority of Conservative Back Benchers present choose to read into the treaty proposals the most alarmist outcomes possible. Such outcomes could only possibly come about after further treaty changes had been agreed upon by all the member states and, in any event, they could not in any sense be regarded as inevitable. Certainly such outcomes are not at all comprehended in the proposals.
	I am sure that some Conservative Back Benchers from the Eurosceptic majoritythat is what it now appears to bebelieve that the treaty will bring about such consequences, but I have difficulty in believing that the Conservative Front-Bench team really believes that such things could happen. Nevertheless, its approach to the amendments and to the substantive policy debates on the issue since we began our consideration a couple of weeks ago has been to set up a series of Aunt Sallies and to try to frighten the public with scenarios that, when pressed, the hon. Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) has had to concede, even today, were only theoretical possibilities rather than inevitable consequences of the treaty proposals.
	One example, which we discussed earlier, was the attempt to parallel the new president post with that of the Presidents of the US and Russia. I do not want to make too much of it, but it is quite instructive that Conservative Front Benchers have chosen to make that parallel. The purpose of trying to suggest, entirely erroneously, that the five-year presidency was in any sense parallel to the US presidency could only be to put into the public's mind the suggestion that an EU president would be akin to President Bush or other American presidents and make that sort of constitutional change. Anyone who reads the proposals knows that that is not the situation, but it is an example of how the Conservatives are trying to frighten the public.
	Another example is the way in which the high representativean important and welcome reformis being promoted as being, in effect, an EU Foreign Minister, when the proposal has in fact been hedged about with many restrictions and limitations. Indeed, the proposal could be criticised for not going far enough. If anyone is in any doubt about that, they need only refer to the words of former French President Valry Giscard d'Estaing, who said that in the revised proposals Britain has already weakened all attempts at further European integration, including rejecting the title of Minister for Foreign Affairs. The reality is that the high representative will be nothing like the EU Foreign Minister that the Conservatives suggest is being created.
	Those are two examples of the fairly extreme, but at least rational criticisms of the proposals that we have heard from some members of the Conservative party. There are even more extreme proposals from some sections of the party represented in this House. I had the great fortune last night of being here until 2 am in support of the Government's proposals for local government changes in Shropshire. I had some time on my hands, as one does at the time in the morning, so I had a closer look at my e-mails than I might do earlier in the day. I was interested to receive an e-mail from the office of the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies)I have told him that I would raise this point if I had the opportunity to speak today. It was an invitation from the hon. Gentleman to attend an event launching the FreeNations website, presenting
	The Totalitarians who founded the European Union and their impending triumph..
	I had a quick look at the website, which contains a list of Eurofederalistsa list of conspirators that makes the conspiracy recently outlined by Mohammed al-Fayed seem modest in comparison. That list includes not only, as one might expect, the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke), the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) and my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Mr. Davies), but the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Mr. Galloway) and even my hon. Friend the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell). For him to be denounced as a Eurofederalist is an indication of the outer reaches of reality that are occupied by some members of the Conservative party.
	I make that point because it illustrates the position of an increasing number of Conservative Members. They actually believe some of that stuff. They believe that there is some plot, as the website helpfully sets out, to do through the European Union what Hitler attempted to do between 1939 and 1945. That illustrates the problem for Conservative Front Benchers: they have to try to bridge the gap between some contact with reality and the extreme views on the Conservative Back Benches, which are gaining a higher and higher profile in their party.
	My view is very simple. I want to see the EU working more effectively. I believe that the situation in the EU institutions does not allow the member states of Europe to work together as effectively as they could. The proposals for the presidency and the high representative are sensible measures that will allow the Union to work more effectively to meet the challenges of our time, and that is why I oppose the Conservative amendments, which would reduce the improvements in efficiency and efficacy that I want to see brought about.

Mark Harper: I shall try to be relatively brief, as I know that one or two Members still want to speak and that many Members want to get on to the next group of amendments. I shall limit my remarks more narrowly than I had intended.
	I speak in favour of amendment No. 258, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois) and our right hon. and hon. Friends, which concerns the role of the president. My hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh was careful and, despite what Labour Members have said, he was in no way alarmist. He made it clear that he was not suggesting that there should be instantaneous changes but rather changes over time. He was right to warn us of that.
	It is worth remembering that one of the powers of the presidency of the US, other than the President's specific powers as commander-in-chief, is the use of the office as a bully pulpit. That is a phrase that is often used in America and means a forum in which the President can argue diplomatically with other states, as well as arguing through the media to persuade citizens to influence the legislaturesometimes going over the heads of Congress. That is exactly the sort of role that it would be reasonable to anticipate that the role of the permanent president of the Council might turn into, particularly if the person appointed is a character like Tony Blair. I do not necessarily mean him specifically, but he is someone whom we know, to our cost on these Benches, has some formidable skills when it comes to arguing and articulating positions. Many Labour Members were persuaded by him to do things that they perhaps would rather not have done.
	The case put forward by a number of my hon. Friends seems perfectly reasonable. If a character such as Tony Blair were to take the position of president and use it as a platform and an opportunity to speak to the media around the world and to speak in diplomatic council, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest that it would develop over time into the sort of powerful position that my hon. Friends have described.

Mark Harper: If what the hon. Gentleman says is true, then, contrary to what the Chairman of the Select Committee has argued, the president will not transform the effectiveness of the EU's position abroad. Such a transformation will only occur if the changes to the roles of the high representative and the president make that position more effective. If those changes are modest and do not have the effect that I have suggested, I do not see how the transformation argued for by the Chairman of the Select Committee will occur.

Mike Gapes: If the hon. Gentleman checks the record, he will see that I did not use the word transformation. I talked about how it would make the system more effective and coherent. I stand by that. We are not talking about transformation, but about incremental improvements, which are contained in this relatively modest treaty.

Mark Harper: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he kept saying that the fact that Britain has a population of only 60 million meant that we were lucky to be on the Security Council. He seemed to suggest that it was outrageous that India was not a member, given that it has a population of 1.1 billion.
	If an EU spokesman habitually addresses the UN Security Council, it will not be long before other membersor countries in the General Assembly that want a place on the councilwill suggest that the EU spokesman should take the place of Britain and France. That seems to be the logical consequence of the argument, and it is something that would weaken rather than strengthen our negotiating position on the Security Council.

Rob Marris: I am sorry that I did not make myself clear, although I stressed that I wanted the UK to remain a permanent member of the UN Security Council. I said more than once in my speech that it was arguably a historical anomaly that a country with a population of 60 million should be a permanent member. I still wish us to be a permanent member, but we are susceptible to countries such as India arguing that that representation is wholly disproportionate. I expressed the viewand the hon. Gentleman may disagreethat the provisions effected by the treaty would strengthen our position on the Security Council and make it more likely that we would be able to remain a permanent member. The treaty means that we would rotate membership with France and perhaps one other country, and that we would represent not 60 million people but, in matters governed by a common policy, more than 400 million.

John Gummer: Anybody who considers these matters in the House should, as I do, ask what is in Britain's interests and how Britain should use what is in front of us to spread her influence. This is the question that I have to askis the treaty, in the respects that we are discussing today, a way for Britain to have greater influence in the world or will it limit our influence?
	I say to the Government that it is a scandal that one should feel rushed at this point because we have not the time to talk about the rest. It is not sensible to ask us to discuss two hugely important mattersforeign affairs and defencein the circumstances given to us. From a Government who promised us line-by-line debate, that is an outrage. Frankly, it makes things difficult, even in respect of issues on which some of us feel the Government are closer to the truth than do others on the Conservative side. That is why I am sorry that the Minister has had to defend what has been an intolerable timetable throughout, but is on this occasion worse than usual.
	However, this is too important a subject to allow the opportunity to go by. Let me deal first with a well-known argumentthe thin end of the wedge. If one does not like something and does not have a good argument to oppose it, one argues that it is the thin end of the wedge. I have used that argument with my wife from time to time when I could not think of a good reason why we should do something that I did not want to do.
	I have great respect for my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh (Mr. Francois), who has made the best possible case for the argument that he is advancing. However, the thin end of the wedge argument, which I have heard in this House in all the many years that I have been here, is almost always wrong, because people who use it wish to avoid the fundamental question, What is actually before us?

John Gummer: We hear about the slippery slope and so on, but we should simply ask what is before us.  [ Interruption. ] Let me explain to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr. Duncan Smith), who I think is fundamentally mistaken on this issue. At the moment, we have a presidency of the Council of Ministers and a mechanism whereby the Council is able to express its view on what we would call foreign affairs. We are not suddenly deciding that it should express its view on foreign affairs but discussing whether the way that we do it at the moment is a satisfactory one that is of maximum use to the United Kingdom or an unsatisfactory one. The treaty of Lisbon says that it is an unsatisfactory one. We want a system that is more effective and efficientone that is not hugely different but makes an incremental improvement.
	If we do something that does not increase the European Union's power but increases its ability to do what we are doing already, some people who do not like the European Union feel that that is an unhappy circumstance, because they would really like it to be less efficient. I happen not to be one of those people. I want the European Union to be better because I want Britain to have more influence in the world, and it cannot unless the European Union of which it is a member is better able to influence the world and we are better able to influence the European Union. It is clearly better to have somebody who has gained some experience in these matters, who is elected by all the Ministers, and who has a limited period but a long enough period to get used to it than to ask the representative of Slovenia, for example, to become the sort of person in six months whom it would be difficult for many of us to become with a great deal more experience and much more back-up.
	We have been trying to find ways round this for a long time. Although the UK did not hold the presidency at the time, I represented the European Agriculture Ministers in the Uruguay round discussions simply because my successor in the presidency was the Luxembourg Minister, who was also Minister of Defence and several other things, and it was generally felt that perhaps my experience as an Agriculture Minister would be better served elsewhere, so I went off to Chicago and did that job. I did not mention that to some of my Eurosceptic friends because I might have been in trouble. However, I did my best to represent Britain's interests because we had the presidency of the European Union and therefore had a voice and could say something. Of course, it was about a common interest, but we would not have been listened to had it not been in the context of the European Union.
	That is why the EU voice is important. Although some of us would like to be back in the days of empire when people listened to us because we were Britain ruling a quarter of the world, they do not do that any longer. They are more likely to listen to 27 nations coming to a common position. Having a structure that enables us to come to a common position and which needs that common position before the president can represent us is a sensible step. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison)a very great friend and long-standing colleaguethat we need thereafter to have some system of majority voting because it is not possible to work out the details unless we do. That is an excellent balance. It is a balance between the principle of deciding in commonif we are frightened about the process, we can stop at that pointand trying to work something out together when a certain amount of give and take is necessary to achieve a sensible end.
	It is very simple; Britain must decide. Can it risk the give and take of 27 nations, and believe itself strong enough to produce the answer that is best for the British people, or is it so frightened, so uncourageous

John Gummer: No; I ought to try to go on.
	The second issue, which I find extremely difficult to deal with logically because it seems so illogical, is that saying that the changes are the thin end of the wedge means reinterpreting the treaty of Lisbon in the most apocalyptic terms. It is just not true that, because the word president is used in both cases, there is a connection between the president of the European Council and the President of the United States of America. There is a president of the National Farmers Union, but people do not compare him with the President of Russia. That is not a sensible argument. We have to consider what powers that person has, and compare them with the powers of others.
	I contrast the moderate way in which my hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh moved the amendment and my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) spokethey presented the reasonable position, with which I happen to disagree, that the treaty is a slippery slopewith some of the more extreme views, which suggest that we will wake up tomorrow to find ourselves with no sovereignty. We heard exactly the same prediction during the Maastricht debate and it did not happen. Indeed, the opposite has happened. It is a rare occasion on which I agree with the previous speaker, with whom I disagree deeply on all subjects and about whom I am sad. However, I agree with him that it could be argued that we still do not have sufficient methods for reaching a common view and getting the influence that Britain needs. It is in Britain's interest to make the European Union stronger in the matters that we are discussing simply because we need to be stronger. For example, those of us who voted against the Iraq war, and have now been shown to be right, would have liked to perceive a willingness in this country to realise that there are occasions when it is important to stand up for an alternative position.
	I want to consider pragmatism. I am a Tory largely because I want to achieve things. I would not like to live in the never-never world of the Liberal Democrats or the dogmatic world that new Labour patently hides. I want to live in a world that delivers. If I am to deliver, I must ask myself about the mechanisms whereby I can do that. It is no good saying that I can deliver the important international agenda that this country has or should have if I am determinedly independent, in the sense that I do not want to associate with anyone else.
	Most hon. Members on this side of the House belong to a party and recognise that that involves some co-operation. They could sit, if they got people to vote for them, as independents. However, we know that the independent who eschews all permanent links cannot achieve the many things that he or she wishes. In the end, I am the person who decides how I shall vote and I am the only representative of my constituency. However, I join people of like mind so that, if we can produce a common answer, I am more likely to achieve my end. If I have to do that in politics, I must do it in greater things.
	The greater thing is how to achieve the end that Britain wants in international affairs. I do not want Britain to be a backwater or to cease to have power in the world. If she is to have that power, it must be through alliance and permanent relationships. Our permanent relationship must be, first and foremost, with the European Union. However, that does not stop us having other friends. I understand, although I missed the contribution, that a colleague suggested that we cannot have more than one friend. That is not true. I myself have more than one friend. If there is someone in the House with only one friend, that is sad.
	The proposals are moderate and modest and will not lead to the terrible apocalyptic ends that some fear. They will give Britain the opportunity to exert greater influence in the world without losing any influence that she already has. What could be better? Why cannot we be as one, at least on the issue that we are discussing?

Iain Duncan Smith: We know that we are not going to get on to the next set of amendments. Let me remind those who were not here during the debates on Maastrichtjust to get this one clear, I was here and I opposed itthat the then Foreign Secretary, our ex-colleague Douglas Hurd, assured my hon. Friend and me that we would have the pillar system, a wonderful construct, and that it was set in concrete that it could never be affected by the Commission. My hon. Friend has just made the exact point that that has changed in the period since, so all the assurances given by Ministers are worthless when it comes to the European Union treaties.

William Cash: Does my right hon. Friend agree, as I suspect he would, that there is something utterly pathetic about the situation we have arrived at in this debate? The question whether our young men are to be sent off to war really should be debated. The question of how a common foreign and security policy is being developed is being ignored by the Committee thanks to the means that the Government have employed to frustrate debate

Jim Murphy: In a little moment.
	However, to argue as the right hon. Gentleman did that when that happens, we should be bound to argue that position at the United Nations, instead of having the high representative as an alternative, turns the UK seat into a European seat at the United Nations, and we want nothing to do with that.

William Cash: The Minister will know that under the provisions that are supposedly before us now, but which we will be unable to debate properly because of the disgraceful way in which this business has been handled, there is a provision that links the common position to article 51 of the United Nations treaty. The plain factthe Minister knows it, and the Prime Minister knows it, and the Foreign Secretary knows itis that there is often no common position on matters such as Kosovo and Iraq. Such matters go to the very heart of whether or not we fight and our young men are sent out there. The Government will not even give the House the time to discuss those matters properly. It is a thorough disgrace.

Jim Murphy: To turn to the substance of the business before us this evening, the fact is that the position of president of the European Council already exists. The Maastricht treaty explicitly stated that the European Council is chaired by the Head of State or Head of Government of the country holding the Council presidency.
	The hon. Member for Forest of Dean (Mr. Harper) said, fairly, that language is important. He, or one of his hon. Friends, went on to talk about the de facto abandonment of the UK seat on the Security Council. That is complete and utter nonsense and the Opposition know it. The fact is that the full-time president will replace the current, ridiculous system of a rotating six-month presidency of the European Council. The twice-yearly rotation causes problems with continuity and reduces the effective time each presidency has to deliver the shared agenda. As I said earlier, in the Balkans we made a commitment to the people of Kosovo to stand by them, but in the period since then we have had, I think, no fewer than 17 presidencies, and despite the best intentions, momentum in the EU has ebbed and flowed throughout that period.
	The hon. Member for Rayleigh was on very thin ice when he put forward his arguments about the thin end of the wedge and about trap doors. He also argued that the President of the European Council would in some way be the equivalent of the President of the United States of America. That assertion does not stand up even to superficial examination. The US constitution vests executive powers in the President of the United States of America; the President of the European Council will have no such powers. The US President is the commander in chief of the US armed forces; there will be no such role for the President of the European Council. The US President can make treaties; there will be no such power for the President of the European Council. The US President can appoint Supreme Court judges and grant pardons; there will be no such power for the President of the European Council. The President of the US can veto Bills passed by Congress; there will be no legislative role for the President of the European Council. We must all be careful about the terminology that we use. To argue, as the hon. Gentleman did, that this measure was tantamount to the creation of an all-powerful president akin to the President of the United States of America showed a kind of Europhobia gone rampant on the Conservative Benches.

Bernard Jenkin: Further to that point of order, Mrs. Heal. May I invite you to invite the Minister to make a statement about the future conduct of this Bill in order to have an opportunity to discuss the defence provisions of this treaty?

Jim Murphy: As I was saying, amendments Nos. 156 and 254 would prevent the EU from concluding international agreements. The EU has had the ability to conclude such agreements since the treaty of Amsterdam and has done so in some 100 cases. The Lisbon treaty simply summarises the existing powers to conclude international agreements with one or more third countries or international organisations. If we were to agree to such amendments this evening, the EU would not be able to enter into any agreements on behalf of its 27 member states. That would include agreements on world trade; agreements on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees; agreements with Latin America on combating the drugs trade; and agreements on EU crisis management operations in Bosnia and Kosovo. That shows what would be the impact of those amendments tabled by Conservative Members.
	Despite the rhetoric and the assertions, the fact remains that no other member state and no other conservative party in any other member state opposes the proposals in the treaty on common foreign and security policy. We have already heard from the shadow Foreign Secretary that the Conservatives do not oppose just one of the proposals, but each and every one of them. As the right hon. Member for Suffolk, Coastal (Mr. Gummer) said, we have to do what is in Britain's national interest, and this treaty helps to deliver that. The opposition to our proposals that can be seen in each and every one of the amendments tabled this evening is a victory for an isolationist ideology over our national interest.

The First Deputy Chairman: Order. Perhaps we could all calm down a little and get on with concluding the debate.

It being three hours after the commencement of proceedings, the First Deputy Chairman of ways and means put forthwith the Question already proposed from the Chair, pursuant to Order [28 January and this day].
	 The Committee divided: Ayes 133, Noes 331.

Cyber-bullying (Children)

Si�n James: I am grateful for this opportunity to raise concerns relating to cyber-bullying among schoolchildren and to make my right hon. Friend the Minister for Children, Young People and Families directly aware of a case in my constituency. She may be interested to hear that while I was preparing for the debate, teachers' representative bodies contacted me to express their concern. They, like others, have had to develop new guidelines and advice for professionals on how to deal with such incidents.
	Owing to the growth in new technology, and particularly the popularity of camera phones and video-sharing websites, there has been an increase in bullying that relies on those formats. It is commonly known as cyber-bullying. The unsavoury term most associated with cyber-bullying is happy-slapping, whereby an unsuspecting victim is attacked while an accomplice records the assault, commonly with a camera phone or smart phone. A more inappropriate descriptive term could not have been coined; there is nothing happy about such incidents. Indeed, they are the ultimate humiliation and leave many young people devastated.
	The Government have made tackling bullying in schools a priority, and the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), has made it clear to me that no form of bullying should be tolerated. Bullying in our schools should be taken very seriously. It is not a normal part of growing up, and it can ruin lives. My interest in cyber-bullying issues developed following a complaint received from one of my constituents. The family wished to remain anonymous, and I respect and understand the reason why: they believe that their child has been through enough. The child's father wrote to me, expressing deep concern about the fact that his son was assaulted while on school premises, and the incident posted on the video-sharing internet site YouTube. My constituent asked me to view the footage, and I was appalled by the content. His child was ambushed from behind and physically attacked in the most sickening way. The perpetrator was seen laughing, along with other pupils who aided the assault. The footage was classified on YouTube as comedy and entertainment.
	I would like to make my right hon. Friend the Minister aware that the headmaster of the school took the incident very seriously. I understand that the police visited the boy who assaulted the pupil. However, my right hon. Friend will know that there is no consistent way of dealing with those problems in our schools. I hope she agrees that often young people who participate in cyber-bullying mistakenly think that camera phones and the internet will provide them with anonymity, allowing them to target other young people and/or teachers without fear of identification or retribution.
	I firmly believe that video-sharing and social websites have allowed young people to communicate in a positive way. I am not against people enjoying the internet, being proud of cinematography and wanting to post videos for others to enjoy, but it is clear that such sites have a darker side. They act as a channel for bullying. Recently, my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) drew our attention to the tragedy of young people, many of them seeking support and guidance, choosing to take their own lives after using social networking sites.
	I recognise that the vast majority of the UK internet industry takes a responsible approach to the content that it hosts, both of its own volition and in co-operation with law enforcement and Government agencies. However, I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend worked with websites such as YouTube to prevent videos featuring such incidents involving school-age children from being uploaded. Is my right hon. Friend able to update the House on the progress of discussions with internet service providers and mobile phone networks to tackle cyber-bullying among schoolchildren? The parent who contacted me says:
	I believe that these videos should be appropriate and that YouTube should be doing more to ensure that footage showing inappropriate and violent content is not screened.
	He is right. The moderation provided by the industry is clearly inadequate and I my right hon. Friend to seek ways of strengthening its role.
	My constituent firmly believes that internet sharing sites hide behind the fact that as it is their customers who upload the images, they are not responsible. To remove the footage of a violent assault in a school only after a complaint is received is not acceptable. It is too late. Action should be taken at the point of uploadinga key role for the moderators. It appears that some sites profit by encouraging customers to upload material, but when that material is offensive, they seek to pass the blame on to others.
	I am aware that the Government have provided new guidance in how to prevent and tackle cyber-bullying in their document Safe to Learn: embedding anti-bullying work in schools, which was released on 21 September 2007. That is welcome, and I know that the Government have worked hard with their taskforce to try to address the problem. What further work is the Department undertaking through the cyber-bullying taskforce to ensure that schools and parents are provided with the information that they need to keep children safe online? Will the Minister also update us on her work with charities such as Bullying UK and ChildLine, which are at the forefront in helping young people with these issues?
	I have mentioned the concerns of parents and pupils; let me turn now to the concerns of professionals working in our schools. The National Union of Teachers has informed me that it sees the use of new technology as positive. Even a mobile phone can be useful. Many students store assignments, notes on lessons or their timetable on their phone. In these circumstances, the possession of a mobile phone can be an opportunity to improve their learning. However, if misused it may become an instrument of bullying or harassment directed against pupils and teachers.
	There is clear abuse in our schools. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers undertook a survey which revealed that 17 per cent. of respondents had experienced some type of cyber-bullying. Those incidents ranged from receiving upsetting emails and unwelcome text messages to silent phone calls and malicious use of websites and internet chat rooms. Some teachers left the profession or retired as a result of these new phenomena. What shocks me is that some cases of cyber-bullying have even been reported between teaching staff.
	The results of the survey showed that 53 per cent. of respondents did not know whether their school had a code of conduct to address cyber-bullying, and 39 per cent. said that their schools did not. Of those whose schools have a code of conduct to address the issue, 19 per cent. said it was not properly enforced and 72 per cent. could not say whether it was enforced. Will my right hon. Friend look into these issues, particularly the confusion among some in the profession about how to deal with them? I am conscious of the fact that there are many demands on teachers and that parents often have high expectations of them, but will she work closely with teaching representative organisations to spread awareness among teachers who experience these dilemmas?
	Schools face several challenges when trying to eradicate these problems. Staff in some schools are not always up to date with new technology. They need clear guidance on cyber-bullying, the methods used and their rights and responsibilities when dealing with these issues. They need examples of good practice and the support of local authorities and Government.
	I am sure the Minister is already aware of many of the issues and I would welcome her comments. It is time for an outright ban on all mobile phones on school premises. Alternatively, could a ban on any mobile phones that are able to take and display photographs or video clips be the answer? Through new technology it is possible to install cell phone detectors, which could help to enforce non-use policies.
	There is a need for greater understanding across Government Departments. When my constituent made the initial complaint to me, I took the issues up with the Home Office. I recognise that it is the Minister's responsibility to take the issues forward with teachers and children, but it would be helpful if she could liaise with other Departments that have similar elements of responsibility.
	The Minister will know that all commercially produced films and videos are subject to classification and regulation; user-generated violent videos or video clips are not. That fuels the perception among young people that they can film acts of violence or bullying and extend that abuse on to websites. They are encouraged in their actions by the failure of internet sharing websites to take positive action and prevent such material from being posted.
	The Home Office has informed me that it is not possible to prevent such videos from being uploaded; it claims that the sheer volume of them prevents screening or classification and that pre-screening could prevent the reporting of new events and the uploading of slapstick comedy films. It argues that it would be difficult to distinguish between slapstick and deliberate happy-slapping incidents. However, if we are to change the perceptions of those who participate in happy-slapping acts, perceptions across Government must also change. I am confident that the Minister will agree to take the lead in changing those perceptions.
	The Internet Watch Foundation is the only authorised UK organisation operating an internet hotline for the public to report their exposure to potentially illegal content online. Will the Minister make contact with the IWF and work with it on cyber-bullying issues? It could develop a method whereby parents, teachers and pupils could report acts of violence among pupils online. The Home Office believes that such issues are outside its remit, but I believe that it has the knowledge and experience to help to eradicate such problems. Will the Minister work more closely with Home Office Ministers to ensure that young people have enough information to understand the implications of a happy-slapping incident? Such people could be committing a criminal actmore to the point, they are abusing fellow pupils. Interestingly, France has made happy slapping a criminal offence. I do not wish to demonise young people or suggest that they should be criminalised for cyber-bullying, but it is clearly a subject for debate across Europe and not only in Britain.
	To conclude, I am very aware that the Government are committed to tackling all forms of bullying in schools.

Beverley Hughes: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mrs. James) on securing this debate and raising this important and distressing issue; I also thank my other hon. Friends, who share her concerns, for being here tonight.
	Technology opens up a world of opportunities for pupils, but it also presents hazards. Cyber-bullying is one of the nastiest consequences of technological development. Estimates suggest that between 11 and 34 per cent. of children have been affected. It is a particularly insidious form of bullying. Because new technology is available 24/7, bullying can continue 24/7 without respite or refuge, invisible to all but the victim and the perpetrator. The abusefor that is what bullying iscan be compounded in this form many times over by posting it in cyberspace for all to see or by passing images to whole swathes of people at the flick of phone key. Because cyber-bullying can transcend institutional boundaries, we need a broad response to conquer it, so schools, businesses, parents and young people themselves all have key roles to play. Our job in Government is to enable, to support and, in particular, to drive what must be a multifaceted response so that it has the impact that my hon. Friend and I want to see.
	There is much more work to do, as my hon. Friend said, but in the past 12 months significant progress has been made. I am happy to answer her request for an update on our work, and I will respond to her specific questions as I go. As she said, schools have our anti-bullying guidance, Safe to Learn, which contains a specific cyber-bullying section developed by Childnet International. That gives teachers all the information that they need to get to grips with cyber-bullyinghow to identify it, how to prevent it, and how to respond before things escalate. Above all, it meets teachers' demands for more information and advice on the issue to ensure that they can be as savvy as their pupils and that schools have effective strategies for dealing with cyber-bullying.
	The guidance currently applies to English schools, but I understand that it is being considered by the Welsh Assembly for use in Wales too. Alongside that, English schools have been given additional powers and resources to tackle bullying, including cyber-bullying. We have given them statutory powers to confiscate mobile phones used maliciously in and around school grounds; we have recently launched peer mentoring schemes whereby older pupils can help teachers to tackle bullying; and we are expanding the social and emotional aspects of learning programme to secondary schools following its great success in primary schools.
	Cyber-bullying is a new phenomenon, and understandably there are still issues to do with awareness and training to deal with it. We are continuing to work with the teaching unions and the Training and Development Agency for Schools, but Safe to Learn is an important start. As my hon. Friend rightly said, now that we have given schools this guidance and those powers, we need to help them to use those tools consistently. I am pleased that the school that she mentioned appears to have responded in absolutely the right way. We need all schools to apply the best practice contained in Safe to Learn. That meansI say this unequivocallytaking a hard line on cyber-bullying. In cases where an assault has occurredthat is what happy-slapping is; it is already a criminal offenceschools should involve the police, as that school did. Equally, we will back heads to take the strongest action against pupils who use new technology to harass their teachers, because that has absolutely no place in our classrooms.
	Young people themselves are another important focus. The explosion in social networking sites in recent years means that it is vital to teach children how to use the net safely and responsibly. We have responded to that need with an e-safety module as part of the key stage 3 information, communication and technology curriculum. The Safe to Learn guidance provides further advice on how schools can teach pupils to stay safe online and what to do if they are cyber-bullied. Last year, Childnet International developed a short film bringing to life how cyber-bullying starts, what its impact can be on the victim, and how schools, parents and pupils can take active steps to prevent it. The film has been circulated to all schools as a teaching aid.
	We are also reaching out to parents. Parentline Plus has produced a leaflet for parents on how to protect children from cyber-bullying. That leaflet offers measured and practical advice showing parents how to keep their children safe without denying them the positives that technology can bringit is important to strike that balance. Because most surveys have shown that there are big differences between what parents think that their children are doing online and what children actually say they are doing, it is crucial that parents keep a close eye on what their children do. Right from the beginning, they should be aware of the potentially negative uses of technology. They should instil the right values in their children and the expectation that cyber-bulling is just not acceptable.
	At heart, we have to address the culture that allows cyber-bullying to flourish. Through personal, health and social education lessons and the social and emotional aspects of learning programme that I mentioned, schools must teach children about the need for respect and tolerance. But we are also taking a more direct route. Last year, we ran a vigorous online campaign on popular sites like Bebo, Yahoo and MySpace. It was called Laugh at it and you're part of it, and it aimed to challenge those young people passively involved in cyber-bullyingperhaps by observing and filming something that is going onby showing that sending on a malicious e-mail meant that they were taking part in the bullying, too. It meant that they were part of it.
	Evaluation showed that the campaign reached nearly 170,000 young people in its six-week run. More impressively, 84 per cent. of respondents to the survey we conducted after the campaign said that they would now help in a situation where someone was being cyber-bullied. The audience were also more aware of the severity of cyber-bullying after the campaign: 71 per cent. had seen it as a serious problem beforehand, and that rose to 90 per cent. after the campaign. That is real evidence that we have started to get the message across and that we have started to spark a cultural shift among young people.
	I know that some have arguedmy hon. Friend touched on thisthat technology providers are complicit in cyber-bullying, and I have mixed views on that point. Certainly, online channels, by their very existence, provide the oxygen for cyber-bullying to survive. Without a medium to broadcast content, the appeal of cyber-bullying would probably shrivel, and I agree with my hon. Friend that we need business to raise its game. However, I do not think that the suggestions of a blanket ban on mobile phones, blocks on websites or tweaks to video phones are a feasible way forward. Some schools may choose to ban mobilesthey have that powerbut I am not convinced that a wholesale ban would necessarily prevent cyber-bullying. It would not necessarily have any effect beyond the school gates.
	I understand my hon. Friend's question as to whether pre-vetting can prevent the broadcasting of content. That makes absolute sense. The problem, however, is the extent to which it is a realistic idea in the context of the extent to which young people are using such sites. Users of YouTube, for instance, upload on average six hours of video every minute. We estimate that it would require 360 people working 24 hours a day to keep tabs on every video. That reveals the scale of the difficulty of monitoring content before it gets posted.
	We need collaboration, creativity and consensus in order to keep pace with the threat. In that spirit, we have developed the cyber-bullying taskforce that my hon. Friend mentioned. It is a forum for internet service providersthey are part of the taskforcemobile phone companies, teaching unions, charities and law enforcement agencies to work together to find the creative means to stop cyber-bullying. The taskforce has played an important role in the initiatives I have already spoken about, and it continues to be important for building consensus on the way forward. Through the taskforce we will continue to push for more effective solutions to speed up the removal of malicious content, as far as we can, to refine safety precautions and to tighten up terms of use across the industry.
	We need to acknowledge what has already been achieved. For example, YouTube has worked with beatbullying to develop an anti-bullying channel; MySpace is working with the Department to develop an anti-bullying webpage, and Vodafone and O2 have contributed to the cost of cyber-bullying resources for schools. There is clear evidence that that collaborative approach is paying dividends, and I am sure that there is more to come.
	Alongside the cyber-bullying taskforce, we have commissioned Dr. Tanya Byron to conduct a wholesale review of the risks that new technology may pose to young people. It will inform a broader strategy, including that on cyber-bullying. Dr. Byron is considering the way in which institutions can work together more effectively on child protection issues, which, as my hon. Friend rightly points out, is vital. There is significant join-up across GovernmentI understand her call for that. For example, Home Office representatives sit on the cyber-bullying taskforce. A colleague in my Department regularly discusses such matters with his counterpart in the Home Office. However, we clearly need to make things more seamless at all levels. I think that Dr. Byron's recommendations will be helpful and I look forward to hearing them.
	We all know that behaviour evolves as society evolves, and that new opportunities also present new hazards. In the 1970s and 1980s, racially motivated bullying was the scourge of our schools. It required a concerted responseby teachers, media, the Government and society at largeto make a significant impression. Cyber-bullying is in danger of becoming the scourge of 21st century schools. However, I believe that we can make the same inroads against that form of bullying as we did against racism in the 1990s. It will take a similarly broad response across Government, schools, businesses and the community to achieve success. Crucially, it involves mobilising young people, and especially their parents, in the fight against cyber-bullying. Through Safe to Learn, the cyber-bullying taskforce, increased powers for teachers and hard-hitting information campaigns, I believe that we have made an important start.
	We have much more to do, but by continuing to work in partnership with providers, schools, charities and families, I am confident that we can claim technology as a force for good in our schools and our lives and not allow it to become a force for ill. My hon. Friend's concern and pressure for action contribute to that. Again, I am grateful to her for bringing her concerns to our attention and enabling me to say that we share them, to outline what we are already doing to respond and what, with her help, we will continue to try to achieve.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes to Nine o'clock.